Red Dot - 145

– Episode 145 –
It was the dawn when Hanseo interrogated Gyeong-oh about his betrayal.

Gyeong-oh flew a drone toward the pitch-black night sky.

The drone, modified with a night vision scope, was quite makeshift and crude, but fortunately, it could fly in the dark night sky sufficiently.

The drone stopped at the height of a motel rooftop and continuously blinked a red light.

Another object in the distant void responded to the red light blinking at 0.5-second intervals.

Even with the night vision scope, recognizing a clear shape was difficult due to the distance. Gyeong-oh’s drone relied only on the red light from a faint silhouette and slowly flew toward it.

As the distance closed, the lens captured the clear shape of an object floating in the void.

It was also a drone modified with a night vision scope, but compared to Gyeong-oh’s hastily modified one, it had a more refined and sturdy feel.

Someone’s drone turned its body as if telling Gyeong-oh, who was watching the screen through the controller, to follow.

Following the drone that moved slowly ahead, Gyeong-oh saw two men sitting on a building’s rooftop. In a place without a single light, each draped a thick blanket over their shoulders, waiting for the two drones to land.

“Th-they must be the people watching us,” Gyeong-oh said, swallowing hard. He alternately looked at Changmin and Hanseo, who silently stared at the screen of the controller he held.

“Th-they won’t destroy my drone, r-right?”

“If they want to use you as a spy, they’ll need a means of communication. They won’t destroy it rashly,” Changmin said.

As Changmin said, the people who contacted Gyeong-oh’s drone showed no intention of breaking or damaging the machine.

The two men carefully held Gyeong-oh’s drone and examined it, soon noticing a walkie-talkie attached to its underside.

Confirming that the men found and held the walkie-talkie, Gyeong-oh hurriedly pulled out another walkie-talkie he had. Since he had packed all the devices into his bag when leaving the hospital, he currently had both walkie-talkies.

The other party held the walkie-talkie and pressed the transmit button without examining it closely.

– Hwang Gyeong-oh?

The other party seemed to have already guessed who flew this drone. Well, that’s why they guided him to make contact with them.

Gyeong-oh brought the walkie-talkie to his mouth with a nervous expression.

“I-I did what you told me to! Tell me quickly if my mom is safe!” he said.

Then, the drone’s lens clearly captured their giggling.

– Your mom is safe and sound. If you keep doing what we tell you, you’ll meet her again unharmed.

“H-how do I believe that!” Gyeong-oh shouted sincerely. Tears welled up in his eyes.

“I-I need to know my mom is safe. Let me hear her voice at least!” he said.

– Look, this isn’t like the days when cell phones worked perfectly. How do we let you hear her voice?

“You can let me hear it through the walkie-talkie! Or at least show me her face! If you do that, I’ll do anything!” Gyeong-oh said.

– Ha, this bastard…

The other party, sounding irritated by Gyeong-oh’s shout, spoke to a smaller man beside him. Soon after, a large man pulled out another walkie-talkie. Gyeong-oh focused on the walkie-talkie shown in the drone’s lens.

The large man held Gyeong-oh’s walkie-talkie in one hand and a similar walkie-talkie for their communication in the other, moving to a corner of the rooftop. He seemed cautious, as if preventing any voice from being picked up by the drone’s built-in audio.

A moment later, the large man said, “Okay. I’ll let you hear her voice.”

“It worked!” Gyeong-oh shouted unconsciously. Fortunately, he didn’t press the transmit button, so only Changmin and Hanseo beside him heard his cheer.

Gyeong-oh had good reason to be happy.

Letting him hear her voice was proof his mother was still alive. Hanseo had said, recalling Ki-hyuk, “If that guy is who I think he is, the hostages are probably fine,” and his prediction was correct.

Moreover, the current situation was exactly the flow Hanseo had hoped for.

“Q-quickly, let me hear it!” Gyeong-oh said.

– Wait, you bastard. It takes some preparation.

The man holding the walkie-talkie glared at the drone and grimaced. It seemed like if Gyeong-oh himself were there instead of the drone, the man would have hit him on the head.

– Is the drone’s audio working properly? the man asked.

“Y-yes!” Gyeong-oh replied.

Transmitting sound like a walkie-talkie was impossible, but capturing sound was possible. However, during flight, even with low noise, the propeller sound right nearby caused heavy static, so Gyeong-oh had never properly used this function before.

– Then keep your ears open and wait.

The two men sat down right in front of Gyeong-oh’s drone. Then, they held their walkie-talkie close to the drone and chatted quietly among themselves.

Ten minutes passed in nerve-wracking tension.

The smaller man watched Junseong’s group at the motel through binoculars, while the large man holding the walkie-talkie near the drone yawned repeatedly with his mouth wide open.

Around that time, a voice said, “I’ll pass on exactly what the boss says.”

“Got it,” another voice replied.

Surely, they wouldn’t just relay it verbally.

As Gyeong-oh thought this, a transmission sound came, and another man’s voice emerged.

– Can you hear me?

The voice from the walkie-talkie right in front of the drone had a distinctly heavy tone.

The large man, with a tense face, pressed the transmit button, waited about five seconds, and then answered, “Yes, I hear you.”

His voice had a sharp, formal tone, stripped of any casualness, showing respect for the other party.

A few seconds later, the walkie-talkie’s receiving sound rang, and the heavy-toned voice spoke again.

– I’ll let you hear the hostage’s voice soon, so tell him to wait quietly.

“Yes, boss,” the large man replied.

Again, he pressed the transmit button, waited about five seconds, and then spoke.

“They must have relayed the walkie-talkie signal,” Hanseo said.

Changmin nodded. “Given the short gap between the transmission signal and the speech, they probably only relayed it once.”

Based on the walkie-talkie transmissions so far, the two continued their near-certain guesses.

Though there was another team within direct walkie-talkie range of the two men Gyeong-oh encountered, that team didn’t have the hostages. Instead, the other team could directly contact the team holding the hostages.

There was an additional team acting as a middle bridge to connect the walkie-talkie signals between the large man’s team and the team with the hostages.

Gyeong-oh, understanding their thoughts without difficulty, nodded.

“Based on the design or size, um, it seems they’re using a work-grade walkie-talkie like mine. Normally, the maximum transmission range is… uh… about 10km, but…” he said.

“In a city with so many buildings, the transmission range would be significantly shorter,” Changmin said.

“Y-yeah. The maximum range my walkie-talkie can clearly pick up a voice is about 2.5km,” Gyeong-oh said.

In Changmin’s special forces unit, they used military walkie-talkies different from Gyeong-oh’s, but anyone trained in walkie-talkies—soldiers or security company workers—knew about transmission ranges. In open areas or plains, signals could reach far, but in urban areas, the maximum range typically dropped to half or less.

As a security company system technician in the heart of the city, Gyeong-oh naturally knew how far work-grade walkie-talkies like his could transmit.

Then, a middle-aged woman’s shout came from the walkie-talkie the large man held.

– Gyeong-oh! Gyeong-oh!

“Mom!” Gyeong-oh cried out, bursting into tears in response to her voice, forgetting to press the walkie-talkie’s transmit button.

– Hey, I’ll let you talk, so press the transmit button, wait five—no, ten seconds, and then speak.

Gyeong-oh held back his tears, pressed the transmit button as the large man instructed, and counted ten seconds. Meanwhile, the other side pressed their walkie-talkie’s transmit button and waited.

Exactly ten seconds later, Gyeong-oh shouted, asking if his mom was okay. A few seconds later, he heard his mother’s voice responding as if she had just heard him.

Watching this process, Hanseo’s mind began to spin as fast as Junseong’s.

Assuming a walkie-talkie’s transmission range of 3km, accounting for error margins, and considering the maximum range of the relayed walkie-talkie, the hostages’ location could be estimated to be within about 6km.

In other words, the hostages, including Gyeong-oh’s mom, were likely gathered within about 6km from the location where the large men were monitoring the motel.