[POINT OF VIEW: JO YU-RI - THIRD PERSON]
The silence left by the cut-off call was a physical entity. Heavy, dense, and charged with such absurd electricity that Jo Yu-ri struggled to breathe. She collapsed onto the sofa, her body suddenly devoid of all strength. The hysterical laughter that had seized her vanished, leaving in its place a bewildered emptiness.
He was alive.
The phrase spun in her head, bouncing off the walls of her skull. Alive. After the fall, after the icy river, after the hunt. The relief was so immense, so overwhelming, that it was painful, like blood rushing back to a numb limb. The mountain of guilt that had been crushing her had crumbled, leaving her exposed and trembling.
But beneath the relief, another emotion began to bubble up. An emotion she hadn't felt towards him before. A righteous, pure anger. How dare he? How dare he be alive and so stupidly, incredibly, irresponsibly reckless? How dare he turn his sacrifice, the act that had marked them all, into the prelude to a tasteless joke from the most dangerous country in the world?
The image of his fall, which had been a source of torment, now felt like a betrayal. Not on his part towards her, but on his part towards the value of his own life. He had made them cry, made them feel responsible for his death, only to reappear in the middle of a shootout in North Korea. The audacity of it was so monumental it bordered on madness.
"North... Korea..." Mr. Choi stammered, running a trembling hand over his face. "Is this a joke? Some kind of twisted prank? It has to be!"
"I don't think he was joking," Wi Ha-joon said, his voice a whisper full of awe. His analytical mind was trying to process a logistical impossibility. "How? How on earth does a person get from the Han River in Seoul to Pyongyang in less than twenty-four hours? Crossing that border is practically impossible for an army, let alone a single man who just survived hypothermia."
Lee Jung-jae shook his head, a half-smile of pure disbelief playing on his lips. "I think we're trying to apply the rules of the normal world to a man who clearly doesn't live in it."
[POINT OF VIEW: HELENA - THIRD PERSON]
The woman Leo called Helena remained motionless, the only figure of calm in the room. Beneath the shadow of her hat, her face was a mask, but the tension in her shoulders was visible. Fury emanated from her in silent waves. It wasn't the fury of surprise. It was the deep, ingrained anger of a caregiver, of a mentor, who sees her brightest and most reckless protégé once again pushing all boundaries of stupidity. She had seen Leo escape impossible situations before, but this... this was a new level of insanity.
Without a word, she lunged for the satellite phone lying on the table. Her gloved fingers moved with predatory efficiency, pressing the redial button before anyone could stop her. She was going to get answers, even if she had to shout them across a war zone.
She held the phone up, speakerphone activated again. The call beeped once. Twice. The group collectively held their breath, instinctively leaning towards the device as if it were a campfire on a freezing night.
At the third tone, the call connected.
But it wasn't Leo's voice they heard first. It was chaos.
A deafening roar of automatic gunfire filled the luxurious villa, so crisp and close that several of them recoiled. There were muffled shouts in Korean, but with a harsh, guttural accent, unmistakably northern. And above it all, Leo's voice, not addressing them, but shouting orders amidst the battle.
"COVER FIRE! RELOADING! DON'T LET THEM ADVANCE ON THE LEFT FLANK!"
Then, a different sound. A heavier, resonant BLAM, followed by the unmistakable sound of a magazine being inserted into a weapon. It was his own weapon. He was returning fire. He wasn't running. He was fighting.
[POINT OF VIEW: GROUP - THIRD PERSON]
They were listening live to a shootout in North Korea. The surrealism of the situation was total. This wasn't a movie. It was real, terrifying, and happening right now.
Helena was unfazed by the noise. She brought the phone to her mouth, her voice cutting through the chaos like a whip.
"LEONIDAS!" she roared, and the use of his full name sounded like a condemnation. "INSOLENT, ARROGANT IDIOT! WHAT IN THE HELL ARE YOU DOING IN PYONGYANG!?"
There was a pause on the line, broken by another couple of shots from Leo's weapon. Then, his voice, breathless but incredibly cheerful.
"Helena! Old hag! So good to hear your lovely voice again! Hold on a second!"
A dull grunt was heard through the speaker, followed by a soft, wet thud.
"Done!" Leo exclaimed. "What were you saying? There was a very insistent guy who wanted my watch."
"I'll give you a watch when you get back, if you do get back!" Helena yelled, her voice vibrating with fury. "How? And why?"
"It's a long story!" he shouted to be heard over a new burst of gunfire. "The Han current dragged me almost to the DMZ. Some fishermen who were actually defectors found me. They were going to cross that night. Fate, don't you think? I paid them with that gold Rolex you gave me for my birthday, the one you said was for emergencies..."
"AN EMERGENCY WAS IF INTERPOL DETAINED YOU IN GENEVA, NOT TO BUY AN ILLEGAL PASSAGE TO THE WORLD'S MOST HERMETIC DICTATORSHIP!" she retorted.
"Technically I didn't buy it, it was more like a barter! I needed a place where Helix couldn't follow me immediately! A place to disappear and plan!"
"And you chose the only country on the planet that is literally IMPOSSIBLE TO LEAVE!" Helena screamed, on the verge of apoplexy.
"That's where you're wrong!" Leo exclaimed with maniacal enthusiasm. "The clue, Helena! The fragment of the Royal Seal map I stole from the suit at the gala. It had an invisible watermark, the signature of a legendary calligrapher, Kim Hong-do. He only worked for the Yi royal family! And records indicate his secret workshop, where he kept copies of his most important works, wasn't in the south! It was in a villa on the outskirts of Pyongyang!"
Wi Ha-joon, unable to contain his professional curiosity, leaned towards the phone. "And did you find the clue?"
"OF COURSE I FOUND IT!" Leo shouted, and his voice was filled with the ecstasy of discovery. "It was hidden on the reverse side of an ancient screen! The problem is, the villa is now the guest residence of a very, very big fish! And I mean truly big! And it seems our friend, the 'nuclear fatty,' likes to collect the same rare antiques as me! And he's a little possessive of his things!"
The reference, so crude and so direct, landed like a nuclear warhead in the room. He was talking about the Supreme Leader of North Korea. He had broken into one of his properties.
It was too much for Jo Yu-ri.
With a movement that surprised everyone, she lunged and snatched the satellite phone from Helena's hands. She brought it to her mouth, her eyes blazing with a fury born of relief and fear.
"YOU!" she yelled, and her normally melodic voice was a sharpened instrument. "IDIOT! SELFISH! STUPID, ARROGANT TREASURE HUNTER!"
There was a sudden silence on the other end, broken only by the distant echo of gunfire. Even the chaos seemed to have paused to listen.
"...Yu-ri?" Leo's voice finally said, and for the first time, he sounded genuinely surprised, almost bewildered.
The floodgates of Yu-ri's frustration and fear burst open. "YES, IT'S ME! THE WOMAN YOU SUPPOSEDLY THREW YOURSELF OFF A ROOFTOP FOR! WE THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD! DO YOU UNDERSTAND? DEAD! We mourned you! I spent the last twenty-four hours feeling like the most miserable person on the planet because I thought my stupid call had killed you!"
Her voice broke, but anger sustained her. "I saw you jump! You sacrificed yourself to get us out of your world, to give us safety! And what's the first thing you do when you miraculously survive? You run headfirst into the lion's den! FOR WHAT, LEO!? WHAT WAS THE POINT OF YOUR SACRIFICE IF YOU WERE GOING TO SEEK DEATH FIVE MINUTES LATER!? You didn't sacrifice yourself for us! You just traded one spectacular suicide for a slower, stupider one in the worst place on Earth!"
Her hands trembled, but she clung to the phone as if it were his throat. "You gave us a terrible gift! The guilt of your death! And now you give us this! The certainty that you're an idiot with a death wish!"
Lee Jung-jae gently took the phone from her hands before she could collapse. His tone was not of anger, but of deep, stern disappointment, like a father correcting a wayward child. "Young man," he said calmly. "What you did on that Seoul rooftop... that was the act of an incredibly brave man. You gave us a chance. What you're doing now is the act of a reckless child who doesn't value the life you fought so hard to keep. The life you yourself gave back to us. You are squandering your own sacrifice."
Mr. Choi, seeing his opportunity, snatched the phone from Jung-jae. "And you!" he barked. "You have no idea of the diplomatic and public relations problems you are causing! If any intelligence agency discovers you were with us before... this! Jo Yu-ri's career, everything she's worked for, will be over! Have some minimal responsibility, for God's sake!"
There was a long pause on the line. The shootout seemed to have calmed, replaced by a tense silence. When Leo spoke again, all the arrogance, all the maniacal cheerfulness, was gone. His voice was quiet, tired, and tinged with a regret that felt genuine.
"...you're right," he admitted softly. "You're all right. I'm sorry." He paused. "I was so focused on the clue that... I didn't think. I didn't think about how you would feel. I'm sorry, Yu-ri."
The use of her name, spoken in that quiet, regretful voice, completely disarmed her.
Helena took the phone from Mr. Choi, her expression hidden beneath her hat, but her tone now one of icy determination. The anger had passed. Now it was time for action.
"Leonidas, listen to me very carefully," she said, her voice a deadly whisper. "You have made the biggest mistake of your incredibly stupid life. The party's over. Stop playing hero and looking for treasures. Your only mission now is to survive. Tell me exactly where you are. And tell me what you need."
She paused, and her next words were a promise of steel. "I'm going to get you out of there. Even if I have to sell my soul to the devil and make deals with Helix to do it."
The call ended, not with a gunshot, but with the weight of that impossible promise. The group stood in the silent room, looking at each other. The ghost was alive, yes. But he was trapped in hell. And they, somehow, had become the only remote possibility of his salvation. The nightmare had taken a new turn, and now they were all in.