The argument about who approached Park Hyun-ah took twelve minutes and ended with Hana.
Caden's case for going himself: he knew what Park had been spoofed into doing, he understood the fear from an operational angle, and if Park recognized him as the person who'd sent her running, at least everyone's cards would be on the table.
Vera's counter: if Park had any residual Section 9 loyalty, Caden was the worst possible face to show up at her door. Every Epsilon bulletin would have him listed. His face meant skill thief, which meant the instinct to report would fire before anything else.
Min's position was that Kane should stay out of it entirely because his face was on every news feed in the country under the suspension notice.
Ryu had looked at Hana and said, "She is the one who is not on any list."
Hana had said, "I'll go."
Nobody found a better argument.
---
The Buseok-ro residential building was a seven-floor walkup with laundry lines visible from two balconies and a door security panel that required a unit number to ring. Marcus had the unit from the address cross-referenceâfourth floor, unit 12, registered to a tenant named Seo Ji-hyun, which was either a sublease or a cover name.
Hana stood at the panel with her document case and pressed unit 12.
Ten seconds.
Fifteen.
Then a voice, cautious: "Who is this?"
"My name is Baek Hana. I'm not from any agency. I'm not here to threaten you." She kept her voice level. "Forty-three hours ago someone sent you a message that sent you running from your assignment. I know because I was in the room when the person who sent that message made the decision." She paused. "I'd like to talk to you. Five minutes. You can see me through your door camera the whole time."
Longer silence.
"There's no camera at my door."
"Then you can open it on the chain."
Nothing for thirty seconds.
Then the door clicked.
---
Park Hyun-ah looked younger than twenty-eight. She had the specific drawn quality of someone who hadn't eaten since whatever meal she'd had before running, and she'd been in the same clothes since then, and she was holding her phone at her side the way people held things they were thinking about using.
She'd opened the door on the chain. She looked at Hana through the gap without speaking.
Hana said, "I know you were assigned to Sector 5 under a forged authorization that used Director Kane's key signature. The forged order was placed by Section 9 approximately eight weeks ago." She watched the door gap. "I also know you went to ground here instead of going to your handler or to anyone else in the department. That's interesting."
Park's face moved once.
"You were the one who sent the message," she said.
"No. I'm not the one." Hana set her document case down beside her feet, slowly. Both hands visible. "The person who sent the message is trying to get someone out of Section 9's custody in the next forty-three hours. He sent you running because he needed forty minutes of no Section 9 eyes inside Sector 5. That's why."
Park said, "That's all?"
"That's all."
A beat.
"He used a Section 9 authentication key to do it," Park said. "I know what a derived-key injection looks like. My handler briefed the team on it three months ago." Her voice was controlled but her knuckle on the door edge was white. "Which means whoever sent the message has a skill that can intercept and fake Section 9 infrastructure communications."
"Yes."
"Which means whoever sent the message is the skill thief."
Hana said, "The person in custody is Shin So-ra. She ran a support network. She's not awakened. She has no skill. She was taken to Section 9's private annex because she was helping people Section 9 wanted to control."
Something shifted in Park's face. Not dramatic. Just a particular kind of going-still.
"We couldn't open the cell," Hana said. "The cell block requires a Section 9 biometric authorization. We were inside the sub-basement this morning."
The chain didn't come off. But Park's knuckle went from white to normal.
"Come in," she said.
---
The apartment was barely furnished. A mattress on the floor. A plastic folding table with a phone charger and an empty cup of instant noodles that was the only evidence of a meal. A window with the curtain closed.
Park stood by the window and didn't offer Hana a seat, which was fine because there wasn't one.
"How did you find me," she said.
"An information broker found you."
"An information broker." She processed that. "Connected to the thief."
"Yes."
"And you'reâyou're the witness. The one from the safe house." She looked at Hana more carefully now. "I read your preliminary intake file when I was assigned to Sector 5. They had your physiological data from a previous contact."
"I know," Hana said.
"I flagged your location five weeks ago," Park said. "To my handler." She said it flat. Not apologizing. Just placing the fact on the table.
Hana said, "I know."
Park looked at her.
"The people your handler asked you to report on," Hana said. "The ones who were moved under transfer manifests. Did you ever ask where they went?"
Nothing for a moment.
"I was told they were placed in protective observation," Park said. "That they were individuals whose skill profiles made them dangerous without proper containment."
"Did you believe that."
"I believed it enough." Her jaw moved. "I didn't look further."
Hana didn't push on it. There wasn't anything to push.
"Twenty-four people have been catalogued in a project called ECHO-PATTERN," she said. "Eleven are in Section 9's private custody. Not Hunt official intake. Not legal detention with oversight. Private. No lawyers. No review." She watched Park. "They've been there for an average ofâwe don't know exactly. Months for some. The program has been running three years."
The curtain moved slightly from a draft. Park looked at it.
"I want out," she said. "I don't mean a witness protection arrangement with the same department that Section 9 already has infiltrated. I mean gone. Different country. Clean record through IA. Not 'we'll try to arrange it'âa specific commitment from someone with the authority to make it."
"Director Kaneâ"
"Director Kane is suspended. His authority is on paper and even the paper is being challenged."
"Inspector Yeo Sang-mi," Hana said. "Internal Affairs Division. She has an independent inquiry running. She is not compromised."
Park looked at her. "How do you know."
"Because she provided classified building schematics to Director Kane's contact last night through an untracked channel. If she were Section 9, she'd have used that moment to do something more useful than help." Hana held the eye contact. "She's two weeks into an inquiry that runs parallel to ours and neither group knew the other existed until yesterday. That's either a trap that requires a lot of setup for very uncertain payoff, or it's what it looks like."
Park turned toward the window.
Outside: a gray morning, laundry on the line, ordinary street noise.
"If I go in there with my biometric and Section 9 has any warningâ"
"They'd have warning through their own systems if they knew we were coming. They don't know we were in the archive this morning. The checkpoint guard was restrained non-lethally. Both guards went home at end of shift." Hana had confirmed this from Marcus. "Section 9 thinks the sub-basement is secure."
"For how long."
"The shift runs until tomorrow morning. After that, new shift discovers the situation and we lose the window entirely." Hana held her document case in both hands. "We go in tomorrow. Early. Before shift change."
Park Hyun-ah looked at the floor for a long moment.
Then her phone buzzed.
She turned it to look at the screen. Hana watched her face.
Park's expression went through something small and specificâthe kind of movement that would only mean anything if you were looking for it.
She held the screen out toward Hana.
The message was from a number listed as HANDLER in the contact. Short.
`YOU ARE NOT COMPROMISED. COMMS BREACH TRACED TO EXTERNAL ACTOR. PROTOCOL TWELVE WAS NOT AUTHORIZED UNDER YOUR ACCESS. RETURN TO ACTIVE DUTY. FULL CLEARANCE RESTORED.`
Below it, a second line:
`NO ACTION WILL BE TAKEN REGARDING UNAUTHORIZED ABSENCE. YOU HAVE OUR SUPPORT.`
"They think I panicked," Park said. "They think the message came from someone outside and I ran by mistake."
"Does that match what you thought."
"I knew the message was forged the moment I received it. I knew my comms had been intercepted." She looked at the phone. "I ran anyway becauseâ" She stopped. Set the phone face-down on the folding table. "Because the message told me to. Because even knowing it was fake, the instruction it gave was the one I wanted permission to follow."
Hana waited.
"They'll burn me when this is over," Park said. "Whatever happens to the Section 9 inquiry, to Kane's case, to any of this. They'll burn me because I know about the sub-basement and the biometric door and I've been in their infrastructure long enough to be a liability." She said it without bitterness, which was the worst part. "That's how these things work."
Hana said nothing.
Park picked up the phone again and held it.
"What time tomorrow," she said.
"0700. Before archive opens."
"I'll need to send a reply to this message confirming I'm returning to duty. Or they'll escalate."
"What does a return-to-duty reply look like."
"Acknowledgment code and a check-in timestamp." She typed two lines and held the screen up for Hana to read before sending. "This says I'm alive and returning via personal transport. It buys me until 0900 before they expect a physical check-in."
Hana read it. Looked up.
"Send it," she said.
Park sent it.
She set the phone down with the deliberate movement of someone closing a door.
"Forty-three hours," she said. "You said forty-three earlier."
"Approximately thirty-seven now."
"Then I should eat something." She looked at the empty noodle cup. "And sleep. And then tomorrow at 0700 I do the one useful thing left in my career."
She looked at Hana.
"I want Inspector Yeo's direct number. Tonight. Before I sleep."
"I'll get it."
"And tell the thiefâ" She stopped.
"Tell him what?"
Park looked at the phone on the table.
"Tell him his timing was inconvenient," she said. "I was handling it."
Hana couldn't tell if that was the truth or a story Park was building for herself. Maybe it was both. Maybe it didn't matter.
She picked up her document case.
"I'll be outside tomorrow at 0655," she said. "We'll go in together."
She left before Park could change her mind.
In the stairwell, on the way down, she sent the message to Min: *She's in. Get Yeo's number.*
Then she went back to the van, three blocks away, where Caden was waiting with the engine running.
He looked at her when she got in.
She nodded.
That was enough.
He pulled into traffic.
Thirty-seven hours.
They had something to work with.
