Red Dot - 116
Chapter 116
Soon, the entire group gathered in the break room.
“I’m sorry!”
The man, kneeling on the bare floor, lowered his head so much that his forehead touched the ground. His face was pale, and his body trembled.
“I didn’t even know there was something like that on my phone… I never even thought about it…”
“Calm down.”
The man, whose eyes had become red from crying and whose gaze wandered in confusion, looked up at Junseong’s voice.
“It’s true that it was found on your phone, but we’re not saying you’re a spy.”
“Really? I’m innocent! Really!”
The man desperately shouted while holding onto Junseong’s arms so tightly that it almost hurt. His face was filled with the injustice of being accused of being a spy.
Seeing the man hanging onto Junseong’s arms, Hanseo, who was standing behind him, grabbed his hand and pulled it off. The man let out a short scream as if his hand was being crushed by a powerful grip. He then quickly shut his mouth, feeling the threatening gaze.
A woman, who had been looking displeased from behind the man, spoke in a sharp voice.
“Why isn’t he a spy? Didn’t they find a listening device on that man’s phone?”
The woman’s furrowed brows clearly showed her displeasure.
“They’ve been moving together from the city hall, and there’s no one who could’ve planted a listening device on him. No one even had the chance to look at his phone before everyone was killed! That means he must have had the device from the beginning, right?!”
“That’s true. But that doesn’t mean he personally planted the listening device.”
“Based on what?!”
The woman glared at the man as if she hated him. It seemed like the camaraderie of the past week had completely vanished due to the suspicion of him being a spy.
Not just the woman, but everyone in the group was looking at Junseong with questioning eyes. Only Hanseo looked uninterested.
“There are several reasons why I’m sure he’s not a spy.”
Junseong took the black listening device that he had removed from the man’s phone and held it up. To be precise, the case looked like a listening device, but inside, there was a small, flat stone. It had been taken from a bomb with gravel inside.
When Junseong gently shook the device, it made a clicking sound as the stones inside hit each other.
“First, if he were really a spy, he would have immediately recognized that this was a listening device. How many people would shake it, knowing that the enemy would be listening closely?”
He gathered everyone together and explained that the object was a listening device and that the contents had been replaced with stones. That’s why the woman didn’t lower her voice, even though she was still angry.
But when Junseong had handed the phone back to the man earlier, he didn’t say a word about the listening device.
“Couldn’t he be pretending not to know?”
“That’s possible. But there are more reasons.”
Junseong listed the evidence one by one to make it easier for everyone, including the woman, to understand.
When the phone was found, the man immediately turned it on to check if it was working properly. If he had planted a listening device himself, he would have checked that part first.
The man’s private photos were another piece of evidence.
If he had gone somewhere to eavesdrop with a listening device, he wouldn’t have put photos of his wife and son on the home screen. Also, his phone had no security lock, and it was full of family photos and videos.
There were photos and videos of his family that had been taken over the last two and a half years, and there were small scratches and marks that showed signs of daily use.
If he had prepared the phone just for eavesdropping, he wouldn’t have let his private life be so exposed. There was no lock on the phone, and if it were discovered, his family would have been upset, so there was no reason to keep such photos.
It would have been much better to use a brand-new phone with no information on it and simply say, “I got a new phone a few days ago.”
Additionally, the man’s personality didn’t fit that of a spy.
If there were something as crucial as a listening device that shouldn’t be discovered, it would be kept close at all times. Yet, he had forgotten where he put it and even had visible old scratches and cracks on his phone, which showed how careless he was.
A proper spy wouldn’t be so careless, and they definitely wouldn’t let something like that happen.
Based on these reasons, Junseong cleared the man of the spy accusations. The man, with tears in his eyes, bowed his head in gratitude. The woman still didn’t seem convinced, but she didn’t say anything further.
Instead, she asked another question.
“Then why did you go through all that trouble to plant a listening device? What were you trying to listen to for a week?”
Junseong explained the reason why Nam Ki-hyuk had to plant the listening device, as he had told Dujae. It was to locate the shelters, eliminate survivors, and, when the time was right, to eliminate Dujae’s group after most of the shelters had disappeared.
The woman’s face turned pale with shock. She seemed particularly surprised to learn that the people who had attacked them in the early morning were the same ones who had planted the listening devices.
“Then what happened to the listening device?”
After the man’s innocence was confirmed and everyone let out a sigh of relief, Dujae asked. Junseong turned to the man to ask him for the answer.
“Before the zombie incident broke out, did you see any suspicious people near the changing room? Or maybe a new janitor came in a few days ago?”
“Ah? How did you know…”
The man’s eyes widened in surprise.
“About ten days ago, a young new worker came in.”
“Was he a man?”
“Yes!”
“The lockers in the changing room probably didn’t have keys, right?”
“How did you know? The changing room has CCTV, so I don’t really lock the lockers. Managing keys or passwords is too much trouble, so I just use any empty locker. Uh… but what’s this about? I’m starting to feel scared now…”
The man shuddered. Every word that Junseong spoke seemed so precise, as if he had seen everything, and it was impossible not to be shocked.
“The person who planted the listening device is the new janitor who started working three days before the incident. They probably observed the condition of the changing room and the janitor working on the day of the event, then found someone who was clumsy but attached to his phone. When the zombies came, it didn’t matter if there were CCTV cameras, so he must have planted the listening device in advance.”
The man, who had been listening to Junseong, now looked at him in awe. Then, he tilted his head in confusion.
“Wait, if that’s true, then the spies must have known the zombies were going to appear beforehand, right? Is that possible?”
While others might not be able to, it was definitely possible for Nam Ki-hyuk.
Nam Ki-hyuk knew about the dreams and had made preparations even before the incident happened.
In his dreams, Nam Ki-hyuk was always alone. It was only after the zombie outbreak that he started encountering evil allies, and he didn’t even have a gun.
The current Nam Ki-hyuk and his group not only had guns but also helicopters, listening devices, and even preparations to harvest organs from survivors. They had been moving ahead of time, clearly knowing that the zombie outbreak was going to happen.
However, Junseong couldn’t share all of this in detail with the man and the woman.
Even though the man had been cleared of the suspicion of being a spy, there was no guarantee that he could be fully trusted.
The same went for the woman, who Junseong was still suspicious of.
The man had ended up with the group only because of Nam Ki-hyuk’s interference, forcing him into a route that led to the meeting with Dujae.
In the dreams, Dujae had led survivors and fought through the zombie hordes, hiding in the male janitor’s changing room of the city hall. They escaped from there through a window. Nam Ki-hyuk had already met Dujae in his dreams, so it made sense that he would know where Dujae was.
Thus, it was reasonable to assume that the man had become part of Dujae’s group because of Nam Ki-hyuk’s interference, and the listening device in his phone had been planted for this purpose—to locate the shelters and eliminate survivors, and to eavesdrop on any conversations that might be useful.
The reason the man was here could be understood that way.
But what about the woman?
Unless Junseong could figure out why she was here, he couldn’t fully trust her.
At that moment, the woman twisted her face and spoke to the man instead of Junseong.
“It’s obvious, right?”
A sneer appeared on her lips.
“Those assholes must have spread the virus.”
The woman cursed and looked directly into Junseong’s eyes as she asked,
“Is the boss named Nam Ki-hyuk?”
Junseong had never mentioned the name “Nam Ki-hyuk” to the man or the woman, yet the woman clearly pronounced it.
Junseong nodded, looking at her with suspicion. The woman then spoke in a voice full of murderous intent.
“If I had known it was his gang, I should’ve grabbed them and beaten them to death!”
The woman handed over her phone. It was well-used, but much better maintained than the one the man had. The screen was filled with messages exchanged with someone, but Junseong focused on the other person’s words, which were more interesting than the woman’s responses.
[The zombie virus will break out today.]
[You just need to escape as I told you.]
[Stay close to a person named Kwak Dujae and hide in the place I told you on the 6th day.]
[If you do that, you’ll be safe.]
The messages from the first morning were like this. This was before the zombie virus had broken out. Afterward, there were messages that seemed to have been sent just before communication was cut off.
[I’ve been caught.]
[Ki-hyuk is going to kill me.]
[I’m scared.]
[Help me, please.]
When Junseong finished reading the messages and looked up, the woman’s eyes were red with anger.
“My little brother was working for that bastard, Nam Ki-hyuk.”