Taekjoo inhaled sharply as he opened his eyes. His vision widened at once, catching the faint quiver of his own lashes. A consistent hum buzzed through his head, making him dizzy. He felt a surface. It was cold and hard. A window, Taekjoo guessed. Slowly blinking, he watched the scenery rush by outside. Everything was white—the scattered buildings, cars abandoned by the roadside, and dense trees. It was as if the city were made of snow.
Taekjoo wondered whether he was still inside the train. But he quickly concluded that he wasn’t. He couldn’t hear the sound of wheels rolling on the tracks or feel the familiar vibrations of a moving train. Still, he was moving—whether by his will or not. He had no memory of switching to another form of transportation.
“Are you up?”
Taekjoo was trying to understand what was happening when he heard a familiar voice. Their eyes met in the rearview mirror, and Taekjoo recognized him instantly by the familiar curve of his smiling eyes. It was Zhenya.
“What the hell—ow!”
Taekjoo groaned as the sharp pain shot through the back of his head. He felt the area and realized that his head had been bandaged. The last scene he could recall flashed in his mind.
He had been searching for Hong Yeowook when two men ambushed him. Had he been unconscious since then? He couldn’t tell how much time had passed, how he’d gotten off the train, where he was now, or even what car he was in.
Taekjoo stared at the rearview mirror, searching for answers.
“A lot has happened while you were knocked out.”
Zhenya smiled again. Zhenya looked so cheerful that he might burst into song. Taekjoo found it annoying but didn’t say anything. He simply glared at his partner. He didn’t mind being the butt of the joke if it meant finding out what had happened while he was unconscious.
But Zhenya just grinned, leaving his curiosity hanging.
“Don’t you remember anything?”
“Nothing.”
“Maybe it’s better that way. If you did remember, you’d just die of embarrassment.”
“Stop beating around the bush and tell me everything.”
“Well, if you're that eager to embarrass yourself, be my guest. I went back to the compartment, and you were gone. Not in the shower, either. I waited a few minutes, but you didn’t come back, and your radio was out of reach. Something didn’t feel right, so I started looking for you. Lo and behold, you were passed out in front of the restroom.”
“Hong suddenly disappeared. I went out to look for him, but I was attacked by two men. I think they’re with Hong. Did you see their faces?”
“Not sure see is the right word here.”
“The answer is either yes or no, nothing in between.”
“Their faces got ruined so soon. Not much left to see.”
Taekjoo had a feeling that Zhenya had a lot to do with their faces being ruined. There was no way Zhenya had been motivated by some noble urge to avenge his dear partner. Only a fool would expect such an act of friendship and justice from him. Rather, Zhenya would’ve seen this as an excuse for his own twisted enjoyment.
Taekjoo gave him a withering glare.
“Self-defense. It was self-defense.”
Zhenya spoke in his usual languid tone, as though the drawl itself could excuse what he’d done. Taekjoo was speechless.
“I trust that you took care of them after confirming their identities, right? Were they sent by the Bogdanovs?”
Taekjoo asked, clinging to a sliver of hope—but Zhenya shut it down with a flat no. What he said next was beyond belief.
“I think they’re skinheads. You know—white supremacists, the kind that think they’re here to take over the world.”
“What?”
“They got you.”
No way. Taekjoo was certain that one of the two men was Hong Yeowook. It made sense, considering how Hong was nowhere to be found even after Taekjoo had searched through the entire train. The two men attacked him as soon as they saw him, which made Taekjoo think they must have known they were being followed. The man in the black hoodie even had the latest model of a gun. There was no doubt—they knew exactly who Taekjoo was.
So, according to Zhenya, they were just random racists, and the whole thing was a coincidence? To be fair, this was Russia they were talking about, so it wasn’t entirely impossible. Yet, Taekjoo couldn’t help but feel suspicious about the timing of it all.
Even if Zhenya’s version of events was completely true, a few questions still lingered. If Hong wasn’t one of the attackers, where the hell had he gone? The train hadn’t stopped once between last night and this morning, and Taekjoo had started looking for Hong before the train had even reached Irkutsk. The only place Hong could have hidden in that brief span of time was the restroom.
And that wasn’t the only strange thing. Zhenya was also nowhere to be found when Taekjoo had been searching for Hong. If Hong and Zhenya were completely unrelated to Taekjoo’s attackers, where could they have both been during that same time period? It’s not like they could’ve been clinging to the underside of the train or hiding in the ceiling.
Taekjoo’s eyes narrowed as he stared at the rearview mirror.
“And where were you during that time?”
“Are you accusing me? Or just whining because I wasn’t there to save you?”
“I searched every nook and cranny for Hong. But neither he nor you were anywhere to be found.”
“Every nook and cranny, huh? Are you sure? I didn’t see you where I was.”
“And what do you mean by that?”
“Did you check the conductor’s compartment?”
“The... conductor’s compartment?”
Taekjoo was stunned for a moment. He hadn’t expected that. Of course, he hadn’t checked the conductor’s compartment. The thought didn’t even cross his mind. Zhenya had no reason to be there either unless the conductor was a woman. If he had been there, it would explain why Taekjoo hadn’t seen him at all during his search. Still, it wasn’t enough to resolve all of Taekjoo’s doubts.
“What were you doing there?”
“Well, unlike someone who slept like a baby during an active mission, I stayed up all night watching Hong. Out of nowhere, he got up in the middle of the night. Normally, he’d be reading during those hours, but there he was, getting up when the train hadn’t even reached the destination. Something seemed off, so I went to his compartment. I met the woman in charge of that section of the train and asked if she had seen him. She was unusually cooperative and told me he wanted to change his final destination from Irkutsk to Moscow, asking her how to do it. She gave him a textbook answer—go speak with the conductor.”
To change one’s destination mid-journey, a passenger had to speak with the conductor. This was usually for people traveling farther than their initial destination. But Hong Yeowook was already traveling to Moscow. Even if there had been some booking error, there was no real reason for him to see the conductor. His original destination was the final stop of the train, so all he had to do was get off at any stop and request a refund for the remaining journey. Most of all, it didn’t make sense for an undercover agent to bother with something as trivial as the fare for the last leg of the trip.
Could it be—
Taekjoo connected the dots. He looked into the rearview mirror. Zhenya gave a slow nod, confirming his suspicion.
“Yeah, he was in the conductor’s compartment, and Bogdanov’s messenger was the conductor.”
Taekjoo felt like he’d just taken a punch to the gut. Had this been their plan all along to get in touch with Hong Yeowook? Taekjoo had expected the Bogdanovs to have another person on board, a messenger disguised as a passenger or possibly one of the train attendants. What he hadn’t considered was that the Bogdanovs would be powerful enough to have someone from the public workforce at their disposal. That turned out to be Taekjoo’s critical miscalculation.
As the saying goes, there’s always a bigger fish. Taekjoo’s tense, rigid shoulders slumped.
“And? Where are they? Did you miss them?”
“Yes and no.”
To Taekjoo, this was grave—but Zhenya just kept joking, dodging the point. Taekjoo had never been patient, and what little patience he had, he was quickly running out.
“Give me a proper answer.”
“Spoiler. Hong didn’t get off in Irkutsk.”
“Where, then?”
“After the meeting, he hopped on a helicopter and flew off—literally vanished into thin air from a moving train.”
“Is that even possible?”
“Nothing’s impossible as long as you’re willing to risk a fifty-fifty shot at death.”
Zhenya was right. It wasn’t entirely impossible. But Taekjoo couldn’t believe it. He’d never imagined anything like this could happen.