Chapter 255: We’re Happy, We’re Having Fun

As though he had been waiting for my order, a CIA agent promptly brought over a metal cutter.

He switched on the tool and brought the cutting disc against the lock hanging from the basement door.

Before long, amid the deafening roar of the metal cutter, there was a loud bang, and the lock, larger than a man’s fist, crashed to the floor.

Operative Hong Jongsu immediately approached the door, slid the bolt aside, and pulled the heavy door toward himself.

Click!

The moment the massive door swung open, Saho darted into the basement ahead of everyone else.

We stared at the entrance with bated breath.

About a minute later, Saho came running back into the living room and leaped straight into my arms.

Knowing that everyone was burning with curiosity, I immediately asked the cat,

“Are there gold bars stored in the basement?”

Saho nodded vigorously, confirming my suspicion.

As though they had been waiting for nothing else, Operative Hong Jongsu and his men rushed downstairs.

I was dying to go down and see for myself, but Chief Secretary Kang Inhan blocked my path and prevented me from doing so.

“Director, please wait a little. It could be dangerous down there.”

“But Saho just went down there and came back!”

“Even so, you can’t go down until we’ve confirmed that it’s completely safe.”

While I was arguing with Chief Secretary Kang Inhan, Operative Hong Jongsu came running out of the basement.

“Director, the basement is safe.”

“See! Let’s hurry downstairs.”

Following Operative Hong Jongsu down, my eyes widened in astonishment.

The spacious basement was packed to the brim with gleaming yellow gold.

‘It looks like there are even more bars here than Liu Peiqi hid in the secret room at his villa in Macau.’

While I was looking over the gold, Team Leader Lee Hyeonsol approached and reported,

“Judging by the hallmark, these are 99.99% pure gold bars weighing twenty-five kilograms each.”

“Could they... be fake?”

“Choson Trading, whose name is stamped on them, is a company with a worldwide reputation.”

“Then they definitely aren’t fake. How many are there?”

“At a rough estimate, about five hundred.”

In other words, exactly 12.5 tons.

“That’s an enormous amount.”

“I completely agree, Director.”

Ignoring Team Leader Lee Hyeonsol’s response, I turned to Director Jean-Philippe.

“We’ll need specialized transport to move this much gold to the safe house.”

“I’ll arrange everything immediately.”

After answering, Director Jean-Philippe took out his phone and hurried out of the basement.

Branch Chief Harrison, watching him leave, grumbled sarcastically,

“We’re happy, we’re having fun.”

The Swiss Federal Intelligence Service had contributed practically nothing to finding the gold hidden in Kim Juchol’s house.

Consequently, they should have received only a small share.

However, because I had assigned the FIS a specific role, they would now have to receive considerably more than originally expected.

That inevitably reduced the CIA’s share.

That was why Branch Chief Harrison was being sarcastic.

“Branch Chief Harrison, without the FIS’s help, we simply won’t be able to move the gold to the safe house.”

“Can’t we load it into cars and minibuses in batches?”

“The gold weighs 12.5 tons in total.”

“......”

Branch Chief Harrison had nothing to say to that and fell silent.

A little while later, Director Jean-Philippe hurried back into the basement and addressed me.

“Director Cha, they say the specialized transport will arrive here in about an hour.”

“There’s no rush.”

“Why do you say that?”

“The last time I moved two hundred twenty-five-kilogram bars, it took about an hour and a half. I was so exhausted afterward that I thought my nose was going to start bleeding.”

“Does it really take that long?”

“Try lifting just one and you’ll immediately understand what I mean.”

Wanting to test my claim, Director Jean-Philippe approached the pile of gold.

Grunting with a strained expression, he lifted one bar, immediately put it back down, and returned to us.

“You’re right, Director Cha. They’re incredibly heavy.”

“Now let’s think about exactly how we’re going to get them outside.”

As though he had been waiting for this moment, Chief Secretary Kang Inhan spoke up.

“Director, to carry the gold to the parking area, we’d have to go through the living room. That’s about fifty meters. There are roughly thirty of us here. If we form a chain and pass the bars along, each person would have to cover a distance of about 1.7 meters.”

For an adult man, moving a single twenty-five-kilogram gold bar 1.7 meters wasn’t particularly difficult.

But when there were five hundred such bars, it became a completely different matter.

That was what Chief Secretary Kang Inhan was worried about.

“Chief Secretary Kang, do you have a solution?”

“What if we bring in additional people to help carry them?”

“The fewer people who know a secret, the longer it remains a secret.”

Cha Jiham’s answer was a clear refusal.

At that moment, Team Leader Lee Hyeonsol asked to speak.

“Director, what if we break a hole through the basement wall?”

“But isn’t there earth on the other side?”

“I carefully examined the house before we entered. The basement is partially above ground.”

“Then there’s no problem. What should we use to break through the wall?”

Team Leader Lee Hyeonsol deliberately shifted his gaze toward Director Jean-Philippe.

As though reading Lee Hyeonsol’s thoughts, Jean-Philippe said without hesitation,

“Director Cha, we’ll get explosives and blast through the wall.”

“Do it.”

Clap!

I clapped my hands loudly above my head to attract everyone’s attention.

Everyone immediately looked at me.

“Once the gold disappears, North Korea will inevitably launch an investigation. Just in case, we absolutely cannot leave our fingerprints here. And every single one of you must remain silent forever about what happened in this place.”

“Yes, understood!” a loud chorus echoed through the basement.

Nodding in satisfaction, I continued,

“As you already know, each bar weighs twenty-five kilograms, and there are about five hundred of them. Even if we break through the wall, there’s still a considerable distance to the parking area. Conserve your strength before we start loading them.”

“We will!”

“Director Jean-Philippe, we need to make an opening in the wall as quickly as possible.”

Director Jean-Philippe called over an FIS agent standing nearby and gave him a brief instruction.

The agent nodded and ran out of the basement.

“Director Cha, it’ll take about an hour for our agents to obtain the explosives.”

“Understood. Shall we head upstairs, then?”

We moved into the living room, settled onto the sofas, and continued our conversation.

“Director Cha, won’t breaking through the wall and stealing the gold cause problems?” Branch Chief Harrison asked, a trace of unease in his voice.

“We need to stage this as a robbery. The more crudely we do it, the less suspicious it’ll look.”

“Well... Now that I think about it, you’re right.”

“Why don’t we make use of the free time?”

“What do you mean...?”

I knew perfectly well why Branch Chief Harrison had trailed off.

“Kim Juchol is no ordinary person. There’s a high probability that important documents are hidden somewhere in this house.”

“Ah, right!”

Branch Chief Harrison immediately summoned the CIA agents and ordered them to search the house for documents.

Not wanting to be outdone, Operative Hong Jongsu and Director Jean-Philippe gave similar orders to their own subordinates.

Watching this, Chief Secretary Kang Inhan turned to me.

“Director, should we have our people join the search too?”

“Our employees don’t know what truly important documents look like.”

In other words, there was no point involving them.

“I understand what you mean.”

About ten minutes later, the agents’ frantic movements noticeably slowed.

Apparently, they had failed to find anything valuable.

Confirming my suspicion, Director Jean-Philippe, Branch Chief Harrison, and Operative Hong Jongsu returned to the living room with dejected expressions and sat down on the sofas.

“Director Jean-Philippe, you didn’t find the documents you were looking for?”

“I won’t deny it.”

“Did you check the contents of Kim Juchol’s computer and the computers belonging to the Unit 974 soldiers?”

“Kim Juchol’s computer didn’t even have a password, and we found nothing noteworthy on it. There were three computers in the Unit 974 soldiers’ bedroom, but there was nothing there either.”

Senior Colonel Cho Yeongil had said that the soldiers of Unit 974 enjoyed Kim Jonghun’s special favor.

Therefore, it would have been perfectly natural for each of them to be provided with a personal computer.

Yet for some reason, there were only three computers.

As I wondered why, a plausible hypothesis flashed through my mind.

To test it, I turned to Operative Hong Jongsu.

“Operative Hong, did the Unit 974 soldiers have firearms on them?”

“When we sedated and searched them, we didn’t find any weapons on their persons.”

“Then their weapons should be stored in their bedroom, right?”

Before I had even finished speaking, the NIS operatives dashed toward the Unit 974 soldiers’ bedroom.

The CIA and FIS agents rushed off to search the other rooms.

Before long, an NIS operative came running back and reported that no weapons had been found.

The CIA and FIS agents reported the same thing.

Branch Chief Harrison scratched his head in confusion and asked,

“Director Cha, where did the Unit 974 soldiers keep their weapons?”

“It looks like there’s another secret room somewhere in this house.”

“That’s entirely possible. Should we ask Saho to find it?”

“I’d be happy to, but Saho ran off to hunt on a distant mountain.”

“What a shame...”

“How about we find the secret room ourselves this time?”

“What other choice do we have?”

With a rueful expression, Branch Chief Harrison rose from the sofa.

The others followed him and began searching for the secret room.

I remained where I was, however. There was something I needed to think through.

Chief Secretary Kang Inhan asked curiously,

“Director, where do you think the secret room is?”

“I suspect it’s somewhere in the Unit 974 soldiers’ bedroom.”

Security Team Leader Jeong Gwangseok, who had overheard our conversation, spoke up.

“Director, I went into every bedroom, but I didn’t notice anything unusual.”

“I see.”

I rose from my seat and entered the bedroom closest to the staircase leading to the second floor.

Sitting down on the bed, I looked around and noticed two bookcases covering one of the walls.

‘The bedroom is cramped enough already. Why would they put such huge bookcases in here? Could there be something behind them...?’

To test my suspicion, I approached the bookcases and began examining them carefully.

As though he had read my mind, Chief Secretary Kang Inhan came closer.

“Director, do you think the secret room is hidden behind the bookcase?”

“I’m just checking to be safe.”

I tried to shake the bookcase, but it stood completely immovable, as though it had been glued in place.

Thinking the clue might lie in the books themselves, I began scrutinizing their spines.

Then I noticed something strange.

Almost every book on the shelves was covered in dust.

Only an English-Russian dictionary was perfectly clean.

‘Who looks up words in a paper dictionary these days?’

The instant I pulled the dictionary toward me, something incredible happened.

One of the bookcases moved backward, while the one on the left slid forward.

A door was immediately revealed where the bookcases had been.

“Found it!” Chief Secretary Kang Inhan, who had been watching me, shouted loudly.

Everyone outside instantly rushed into the bedroom.

The already cramped room became packed to bursting with people.

Operative Hong Jongsu quickly approached me.

“Director, just in case, let us go in first.”