Chapter 223

Baekgyeong’s change was like night and day. No matter how cruelly Siron provoked him, he never lost his patience. Clearly, Baekgyeong had returned a better man than before. And yet, Siron’s anger kept rising from within. The more impressive Baekgyeong seemed now, the sharper the memory of the past he had ruined stabbed at him.

“It might sound like empty bravado, but I mean it. I’m going to protect you.”

Baekgyeong’s expression looked desperate, almost pleading. The fury burning inside Siron quieted, like rain extinguishing flames. His gaze slid briefly to the console between the driver’s and passenger’s seats. Inside was the Glock 17 Baekgyeong had packed for emergencies. A suppressor was already attached. The gun was wrapped in a thick towel, but positioned for him to snatch at a moment’s notice.

“Your resolve is touching, but let’s hope you never have to use it.”

A chill crawled up Siron’s spine. He tore his eyes away from the towel-covered pistol and returned his focus to the laptop screen.

He was browsing the Corrections Bureau website. The bureau not only managed prisons and monitored inmates but also handled punishments, and carried out executions once sentences were finalized.

Helso’s bureau provided inmate information through its website. Entering a prisoner’s name brought up mugshots and detailed crime records. Not every criminal appeared in the database, of course—juveniles and security-class cases were excluded. Colby James, Gezar Bazelli’s other identity, was one of those withheld.

Reviewing death row lists from 1996 up to the present, Siron noticed certain trends. In 1996, there had been 312 death row inmates nationwide. By the mid-2000s, the number began dropping, and in 2012 only 94 remained. Of those, nine were charged in Helso.

Looking over Siron’s shoulder, Baekgyeong asked, “What happened in 2012?”

“Hm?”

“Look. Nine death row cases—and six of them were gang members.”

Siron fell silent, searching his memory for what had happened three years ago. Nothing came.

“I don’t know. I was too busy trying to survive to watch TV.”

He brushed it off but typed a search anyway, pulling up articles on the six condemned gang members. The Mexican cartel that dominated East Baggers City and the Salvadoran group entrenched in the North had been waging a bloody turf war, killing one another’s members for years. The massacre that had nearly annihilated both gangs had been the infamous “El Calva Retaliation” arson.

“One of those six is scheduled for execution tomorrow. The very case the governor mentioned at the press conference.”

“El Calva Retaliation?”

“Yeah. You remember it?”

“Were you okay back then?”

Siron blinked, not understanding at first. Then realization dawned across his face.

“I didn’t have dealings with gangs. But yeah, I kept my head down.”

He shrugged it off, but Baggers City had always been lawless. Siron knew all too well what those words really meant. In his old apartment, a gang member across the hall had been murdered one night in the corridor. Every time he passed the bloodstains on the carpet, an unease crawled over him until he finally moved out. His new building brought him face-to-face with an elevator that broke down constantly.

Thinking back on the elevator with its Out of Order sign, he felt an odd pang of nostalgia. Until the day he’d visited that shady urology clinic, Siron had been just an ordinary man who found climbing nine flights of stairs worse than staring at bloodstains. Now, he ached for the elevator that had always been broken.

At that moment, a knock came at the window. Isaac stood outside, waiting. Siron unlocked the car, and the back door swung open. Isaac climbed in carrying several paper bags.

He sat down in the second row, pulling out components and laying them neatly across the floor.

“We’ll infiltrate the governor’s house at 1 a.m.,” he said.

“Wouldn’t later be better?” Siron asked.

“The rain is forecast to stop around three. It’s safer to work while it’s still falling.”

Isaac connected the components piece by piece, assembling a machine.

“In spy movies they always skip over scenes of actually making the gadgets. Reality isn’t so kind.”

Siron’s remark made Isaac let out a short laugh.

“Reality’s a bitch like that,” he said.

He twisted two antennas into the side ports and slid a signal booster into the central slot. “Pass me the laptop.”

Siron handed it over instantly. Isaac scanned the page Siron had been reading just moments before.

“Baggers City gang purges?”

“Yeah. I was checking death row cases from recent years. Lots of gang members. Doesn’t seem connected to Gezar, but it stood out.”

Isaac stroked the stubble on his chin thoughtfully, finished the article, then went back to his work. He slotted in a USB stick, and soon the screen filled with a black command window. His fingers danced over the keys.

“Time to move,” he said to Baekgyeong.

Baekgyeong started the car and drove to a nearby motel. There they revised the plan, checked their gear, and changed into outfits that would make them pass for tourists. They hailed a cab, got out in front of a famous Cuban restaurant south of the Nathan River, and after a late dinner, flagged another cab to their next stop.

Governor Richard Brown didn’t live in the state-provided mansion but in his own private home, in the Sun Haven district. Just three kilometers from the McCarthy siblings’ house in Linhart, Sun Haven was an old hilltop neighborhood where wealthy families had lived for generations.

The mansions there were built like terraced rice fields in Southeast Asia, each house staggered for a view. From a distance, the whole mountain resembled a shrine sculpted from glass and marble. The governor’s home sat in isolation at the very top tier.

That night was pitch-black. Few streetlamps, no passing cars, and relentless rain. The three men pulled masks over their faces, stuffed their coats into bags, and crept up the winding road, stopping about a hundred meters from the property entrance.

Beside the house, the mountain slope had been carved out for an outdoor lot—likely for staff. Even at this late hour, two cars were parked there.

Isaac flipped on his night-vision goggles. The glowing green screen revealed a black Tahoe SUV, the kind used for security teams. That meant up to ten guards inside. The governor’s S-Class and his other cars were locked away in the main garage.

Because CCTV cameras ringed the property walls, they planned to infiltrate using the mountain ridge. Isaac set up his military laptop, typing nonstop. The house’s security cameras were streaming to the system over Wi-Fi. With a hacking tool, he cracked in easily.

“All the cameras are on the same server,” he muttered.

“So we can see inside the house too?” Siron asked.

“No. They deliberately didn’t install internal feeds—too much risk of leaks.”

On the screen, the grainy garden footage streamed in real time: branches whipping in the rain, giant evergreens thrashing in the wind. Isaac loaded a loop of footage from five minutes earlier and synced it across every camera. Then he packed up and stood.

They descended carefully down the slope. Along the boundary between mountain and estate, leyland cypresses had been planted fifty centimeters apart, forming a dense hedge instead of a wall. The intertwined branches made it nearly impenetrable.

Isaac cut and snapped a gap open with a knife. Glancing back at them, he gave curt orders. “I’ll go first. Wait here.”

He locked eyes with Siron, then Baekgyeong, and pushed his body through the hedge.

Suddenly the sky split open. Rain poured down in sheets, not quite a hurricane like the one they had faced before escaping the island, but bad enough to sting their faces and blur their vision.

The two of them stood waiting, drenched, anxious. Thirty minutes stretched into what felt like a year. At last, Siron felt a faint vibration in his pocket. Isaac’s message: Enter.