Keeping You Safe | Pt. 2 Return to Base

[owned_by_a_cat]

Title: Keeping You Safe
Pairing: JaeMin/MinJae
Rating: R / NC-17
Genre: AU, Suspense, Romance, Army!fic
Poster credit: vermilions from Spotlight Posters
Summary: Sequel to Nowhere is Safe. After unmasking a top-level sleeper agent in the army's intelligence division, Major Shim Changmin would love nothing better than to settle into his new posting as intelligence officer for the solo squad and explore his brand new relationship with sniper ace Major Kim Jaejoong.
But spy stuff is messy and when the mole is sprung from high-security jail the day before his scheduled execution, Changmin knows that this affair is far from over.
Hoping to unravel the rest of the conspiracy, and to determine the mole's real target, Changmin offers himself as bait, leaving his lover to pull in favours and even make a deal with a man he despises just to keep Changmin safe.

The story so far: Under Attack |

Return to Base

"Major Shim reporting as ordered, sir." Changmin stood rigid, back straight and chin up. He kept his mouth shut and eyes trained on the gold braid on the general's left shoulder to avoid catching the man's eye. The general looked like a thundercloud already. It would be foolish to rile him further. Even if he deserved it and Changmin wanted to yell at him for being a conservative stick-in-the-mud. That just wasn't done.

"Tell me what you found."

No longer the razor-in-gravel Changmin was used to hearing, the general's voice was a muted rumble now, like an earthquake held in check by pure will. It was a warning Changmin was too smart not to heed.

"Damage to the site is comprehensive, sir," he reported. "Sixteen dead at last count. About forty injured. Both counts still rising."

"Is anyone else unaccounted for?"

"No, sir."

"Sit the fuck down, Shim. You don't need to say it."

Changmin wasn't going to. The increasing tally of dead and injured said I told you so far louder than he ever could. Changmin had predicted months ago that Hyeon's team would make an attempt to free him. None of the analysts who advised the Joint Chiefs had agreed with him and Changmin's warnings and suggestions had been ignored. Only for Hyeon to be snatched out of a high-security facility hours before his execution.

"Tell me how you knew they would spring him. How did you know what would happen when I had a whole bunch of analysts tell me nothing of the sort?"

"I've spent over three years studying their actions, sir. The extent of the compromised missions and the number of tiny leaks suggested that General Hyeon was settled in for the long haul. And that he wasn't working alone. I couldn't imagine that his handlers would end his deployment without achieving his objective."

"Which is?"

"I don't know."

"You believe he has an overriding objective beyond passing secrets to the North on a daily basis. You don't know what his objective is, but you believe he didn't achieve it at the time of his arrest. Is that correct?"

"Yes, sir."

"And you based your prediction that they would spring him… on that?"

The general's voice rose in sheer disbelief. Changmin was careful not to shrug. Hunches were difficult to explain to someone like the general, who ran purely on facts. Changmin did too. It was merely the way he lined up those facts and connected them that made him different. Most senior members of the military and intelligence community worked off preconceived ideas. They had black-and-white outlines that guided their day to day activities and that they used as framework for any data they were offered.

Changmin didn't.

He tried to keep an open mind. He arranged and re-arranged facts until the pattern was… pleasing. The only one who'd ever understood that explanation was Jaejoong. While everybody else looked at him as if he was crazy, Jae had nodded as if Changmin hadn't said anything out of the ordinary. "I get it," he'd said. "It's the feeling I get when I know I have a shot. It isn't in your head, but that doesn't mean it's wrong."

Explaining that to the general would be an exercise in futility. So Changmin took a leaf from Jaejoong's book. The sniper was far more diplomatic than he'd ever be. "I've been extrapolating from existing data, sir," he said carefully. "I've spent three years immersed in this investigation. I lived through the events I was analysing, so my innate knowledge is different from that of other intelligence analysts."

"Bullshit," the general said succinctly. "Don't ever apologise for doing your job, Major. Not to me. You told me what would happen. I was the one who didn't listen. Not the way you needed to be listened to. Do you have any insights as to what he'll do next?"

It was an afternoon for surprises. Changmin took a breath and let it out. "In the short term, he'll disappear. Going by the few reports I've seen, he wasn't in good shape after the interrogations. He'll want to remedy that. Those of his team on the inside, either in the military or in intelligence, will need to lie low for a while too. Medium term, he will want to neutralise anyone he considers a threat. His long-term goal will be to complete his main objective. All of that supposes, of course, that the North Koreans won't recall him immediately. They will if they believe he's compromised."

"Have you seen the tapes from his interrogations?"

"No, sir."

"He didn't break. It's been suggested that he's been trained to a high level to withstand torture. Would that stop the North Koreans from recalling him?"

"I don't know, sir. It depends where they consider him more useful. He has lots of information on the inner workings of the military and the intelligence community. Whether that's more valuable to them than the objective they sent him to achieve… Do we know how long he's been working for them?"

"Since his wife's kidnapping and death. That's what he admitted to. Listen… I want you in charge of hunting down Hyeon and every single one of his team."

"Yes, sir."

"Spit it out, Shim. I already said I'm listening. If I'd put you in charge ten months ago we might—"

"—not know any more than we do now. His team would have been playing dead while they planned to break him out. There was a purge in army intelligence following his arrest and an internal investigation. Everyone was scrambling for cover. There would have been little opportunity to identify any other sleepers."

"Shim. I hate to repeat myself."

"Yes, sir. I think we should establish what his objective is before we hunt down his team. If we understand what task he's been sent to accomplish, it will be easier to work out how big his network is."

"Fine. I want a daily report until I, personally, tell you otherwise. You will not accept anybody else's orders on any aspect of this case. You have my authority to request personnel and resources as you see fit. Is that understood?"

The general's shoulder's slumped. He looked bone tired and Changmin imagined he wasn't looking forward to briefing the joint chiefs on their failure. That he wasn't coming down like a ton of bricks on the intelligence group was telling. Still, being offered that level of authority was heady stuff. He might… conceivably…

Changmin stood and saluted. "Understood, sir."

xxX oOo Xxx

"Sign here."

Jaejoong fought not to grimace. This was the fourth time he'd been asked for his signature, fingerprints and retina scan. And they weren't even at the front gate yet! Getting a traitor out of jail was much less fun than he'd anticipated. Especially since he'd rather throw away the key and the traitor in question didn't in the least appreciate the favour Jaejoong was doing him.

Jaejoong signed. "How many more times do we have to do this?" he asked as he was patted down and another guard checked the cuffs that bound Ran Joon's wrists and ankles before allowing them through the door.

"Twice more. Prisoners don't usually cross through sections other than the ones they're assigned to. You don't realise how much of an exception this is."

"Oh, I realise it just fine," Jaejoong mumbled as he turned and made his way down the long sterile corridor to the next set of doors, guards and another retina scan.

"When are you going to tell me what trouble Changmin is in?" Cuffed as he was, Ran Joon struggled to keep step with Jaejoong.

"I already told you. There's nothing else you need to know."

"Bullshit. You've told me nothing."

Jaejoong shrugged. "Maybe I'm just the messenger boy."

They passed through the last two checkpoints in silence. Jaejoong didn't want to discuss the situation anywhere they could be overheard, and maybe Ran got that. Or maybe he was sulking. Jae really didn't care. He kept wondering why the colonel had sent him to retrieve Ran, when the man knew better than anyone how much he and Ran disliked each other. Did that mean he expected them to work together? The thought made his stomach heave. Ran did that to him. Ran and the memory of standing up in front of his whole troop to expose Ran's blackmail scheme. It had been one of the scariest things he'd ever done. And while he'd thought he was years past the memories, he'd obviously been fooling himself.

Picturing Changmin helped calm him and made him want to return to base as quickly as he could. Colonel Seong had mentioned the casualty count for the attack and Min would no doubt feel guilty. Never mind that he'd predicted the attack. Never mind that he'd risked ridicule to warn the general. The nineteen lives lost while he investigates Hyeon still weighed on his mind. Jaejoong knew that he would add the men who'd died that morning to the tally.

xxX oOo Xxx

The last time Ran Joon had seen the base, it had been through a sniper's scope from the top of an apartment building. The place looked little different from the ground. The office block he'd damaged had been rebuilt, the cafeteria had new glass, most likely bulletproof by the way it distorted the light just a bit. Men went about their business as they had always done.

When they didn't stop what they were doing to stare at him, that was.

Ran kept his head down. He tuned out the attention as he'd learned to do while in prison and followed Jaejoong into the building and up the stairs. Outside their old common room, Jaejoong stopped.

"I need to see the colonel. You will wait here. If—"

"—you set one foot outside the place blah blah blah," Ran mocked. "Spare me the lecture. I have a good memory."

Jaejoong shrugged. "Suit yourself."

Ran Joon hadn't expected a welcoming committee. But all told, he'd not expected to be faced with a lynch mob either.

"What the fuck is he doing here?"

"Did he forget to fuck someone else over before we threw him out?"

"He clearly wants an asskicking. Shall we get to it, boys?"

It wasn't an idle threat. Ran Joon settled in a wide stance. He lowered his gaze the better to observe from his peripheral vision. Getting into a brawl wouldn't improve his situation. In fact, it might land him right back in jail. Or get him shot. But he was damned either way and he wouldn't let anyone turn him into their bitch.

"Stop that shit right now."

Saved by Jaejoong. How annoying.

The sniper blazed into the room and stepped right into the middle of the crowd. "Have you forgotten how we treat guests?"

"If they go by Ran Joon we kick their asses," Rin got in his face. "I would've thought you'd be first in line for the honour. How the fuck did he get here, anyway?"

"I got him out of jail," Jae said and he sounded tired. "Have you heard the news?"

"Yeah. Min was right and the goons at HQ can eat their words."

"Use your brain, Rin. Hyeon is out, so Changmin's a target. The target, since he's the one who smoked Hyeon out. As of now, we're Min's guard detail. One hair off his head or one wrinkle in his shirt and it's our asses on the line. Besides that, Min's got enough crap on his plate being related to that."

Ran almost laughed at the throwaway gesture. Jaejoong was a son of a gun. Manipulating a roomful of angry men for the sheer hell of it. Or was he? It bugged him that he still didn't know how much danger Changmin was in. That he had no idea what Jaejoong wanted with him. He'd never dealt well with uncertainty and Jae's piecemeal delivery drove him nuts.

Still, for the moment he held his peace, lest he spark World War III and when Jae tilted his head in what was unquestionably an order, he turned and followed the man from the room.

Pt. 3 Steps out of Sync >>