The Frost

7.

February 4, Libya.

When Jin came out of Tripoli airport, he was a different person in appearance. Casual clothes and a duffle bag on his shoulder with a camera hanging around his neck made him look like a common tourist at this season.

The first thing he did after coming out of the airport was take a tour around the central park aimlessly, taking pictures now and often, doing whatever a tourist does.

He fed some pigeons, looked around the group of yoga-practitioners for time being, and stopped in front of a young girl in her twenties sitting on a park bench with a flask of coffee beside her. She was smiling at everyone who was passing her and asked gently, "change?"

To convert the dollars into Libyan Dinar, these types of floating small businesses are often seen around the city and these are quite popular among the tourists.

Jin gave her some dollars and waited patiently until she changed the amount into Dinar.

"Have a good day, sir," The girl nodded gently.

"What about that?" Jin indicated at the flask, "For sale?"

"No, sir," The girl smiled, "It's for me."

"Too bad. I was expecting a cup of coffee."

"But prefer beer," The girl smiled again.

"You know a good pub around then?" Jin tilted his head a little.

"Your change, sir."

Jin took the amount and shove those into his wallet and left casually.

The small note inside the money contained an address. The girl shoved the small note inside while changing.

This was the address of the rendezvous point of the sleeper agent here. Beer and pub was the code to receive the address for this month. The girl was the new informer around working for a while in Tripoli.

Jin called the number written in the note and just said, "Thirty minutes" After the opposite side picked up the phone.

After thirty minutes he received a brown paper bag while passing through an alley downtown from his contact and went to the hotel room he booked earlier before coming to Tripoli

The paper bag contained a small smith and Wesson M&P 2.0 with spare magazines and a little LARC device. The latter one was the latest in technology for Long-Range Agent Communication with a two-way link with high concealment and encryption technology. In short, it was a communication device that will transfer messages in encryption, and receive messages, and can decrypt encrypted messages.

She was standing in the narrow corridor in a dimly lit corner. There was a suffocating pungent smell all around trying to choke her senses. Even though she was standing leaning on the sickeningly yellow wall, it seemed that she was barely holding herself up. There were cheap partitioned doors on both sides of the corridor. The plastic bin was knocked down spilling cheap empty beer cans, take-out boxes, medicine strips, and paper cups on the cheap wooden floor.
She tried to carry herself towards a door with trembling feet. She had no strength left in her to stand on her feet. At a corner, two figures were in a deep embrace oblivious to the world around them.

"Fucking assholes!" She mumbled to herself before opening the door with a trembling hand.

Someone was crying inside any room behind those closed doors.

She stumbled inside and shut the door behind her loudly.

"Stop crying, bitch!" She yelled in irritation.

She plopped herself on the ragged bed before shoving a pillow against her ear.
On the table, there was a letter. She has been summoned. She has been waiting for this call for the last six months. She has been sick of this waiting. But this letter wasn't something she was familiar with. Her instinct tells her not to show up at the address written there, but she has been trying to find the pieces of puzzling memories she has been trying to gather ever since that day...wait, what day?

The girl was still sobbing in the next room. The sound of the painful sobs seeped through the pillow on her ear, she clutched on the sheet from preventing herself from shouting again.

Who knew These sick, cheap, dirty environments surrounded by these four walls contained how much sorrow, longing, regret up to these days? Who can tell the story behind those tears and sobbing of that young girl, or how much love or infatuation the embrace of that couple at the corridor held in this most unsuitable suffocating environment?

She closed her eyes and reminded herself to stay away from those drugs for the thousandth time.

"Shouldn't we tell him, chief?" Namjoon's voice was clean.

"No."

"It would be easier for him if he knew beforehand."

"Or it would be harder on him," The chief let out a whiff from his cigar.

"Why now, chief? After so many years?"

"I thought to let it go would be easy. But it's time to face it."

Namjoon shot a scrutinizing glance at the chief, "You know he won't do it, right?"

"I know."

"Couldn't you give this assignment to Jungkook as we thought?"

"He needs closure. And it's the only opportunity we have to give him this," was there was a little guilt in his voice?

"Couldn't we do it earlier?"

"We could. But like I said before, we made the mistake of shoving it back before. Time to repent this time," the chief was calmer than before.

"Don't you think it's crueler?"

"Yes," The chief sighed a little,
"But it should be done. It will either turn the thing into either better or worse. All we can do is take chance."

"Chief?"

"Yes?"

"Can I say something?" Namjoon hesitated for a moment.

"Should I guess?"

"I know that you know what am I gonna say, but chief...."

"Go on."

"If I ever am in this situation, no matter how hurt I would be, don't do the same thing to me. I'd appreciate it if you could be honest."

The chief didn't say anything with this bold statement.

"Did you think anything what would you say when he would confront you?" Namjoon asked.

"He wouldn't."

"Yes," sighed Namjoon, "He wouldn't."

"But tell him the truth if he is willing to know. Hiding things made it like this now. Just tell him the truth."

"I will. If he wants to know," Namjoon got up from the chair, "But you know what? He won't ask."