First Snow

Wrong Train, Right Direction

His hands were so tight around the steering wheel that the knuckles of his fingers turned white.

Why is he driving so slowly ... She needs care ... He drove forward without checking to see if a car was coming ...

He felt helpless, normally it was his role, to take care of her, to drive her to the hospital, to make sure she was okay. All he could do was held the steering wheel as if his life depended on it, and grumble.

The hospital wasn't far as the crow flies, but they had to drive through town, and the traffic was slowing them, to his utter despair. But this was how he noticed something in his rear view mirror.

A sedan, with tinted windows on the sides, had followed them since they had left his apartment. It might have been a coincidence, Bern was a big city, but it wasn't New York either. He couldn't see the driver's face, but it was unmistakably a man, a cap largely obscuring his features.

His phone rang.

"The car behind you." said Agent Kim as soon as he took the call.

"I saw..."

"We're two cars behind, don't follow Miss Yoon, we have to attract him elsewhere..."

He swallowed hard.

"So, it's him."

"Yes..."

"What if he keeps following Seri..."

"Then, we'll keep following him and Miss Yoon will be safe. But he wouldn't try something when she's taken to the hospital, too many people will be with her..."

And I should be one of these people. I should be with her, she needs me.

But her safety came first, always, and if this was the opportunity they had been waiting for to stop Cho Cheol Gang, then it was worth it.

He took a deep breath, his eyes boring into the car in front of him as if he could see her through the metal, and he finally turned to the left, before checking behind him.

The car was following him.

At this hour, he couldn't risk exposing innocent people to potential danger, so he continued to the expressway that led to Interlaken.

He knew the perfect place, an old sanitized gas station, which was to be destroyed in the next few days. He could no longer see Agent Kim's car, but he assumed they were a little further away to avoid being spotted. He got out of the expressway after about ten minutes, drove along the railway line for a few meters, before taking a road in bad condition which finally led him to the abandoned gas station. He parked, turned off the engine, and picked up the gun that was still hanging under his seat.

This was it. He would end this and go back to Seri, where he belonged, as long as he was allowed to stay by her side. He felt a strange calm invade him, the same that had inhabited him before each mission when he was still a Special Forces captain. The determination to survive this confrontation undoubtedly also had a lot to do with it. If he didn't know what the future would hold, he knew he would have to return to Pyongyang, no other scenario was possible. But before that, Seri needed him.

The other car stopped without coming closer, and Ri Jeong Hyeok felt the adrenaline rush through his veins. This man had almost killed his brother, had killed his brother's fiancée, and had almost killed Seri.

It was time to end it.

He got out of the car, and Cho Cheol Gang did the same, pulling off his cap to put on a smirk. They instantly pointed one gun at the other, and Cho Cheol Gang burst out laughing.