"C'mon. Deal with the pain. You have to push yourself here I need you to move a little faster."

Kyung-tae's old injury to his right knee throbbed deeply, even when still, and he was without energy to manage the pain. The mile of uphill grade through jungle, chasing an international criminal had shown him his limitations. And there was the agent in charge. Morrison. The whole way he'd been ripping on Kyung-tae, in his earpiece, quietly "move faster little doggie."

"If I go faster I-will-collapse! Okay? I can't go any fucking faster!..."

"You've been through the training. Eat the fucking pain soldier I need you on this. Do. You. Read. Me?"

"Yes. Fuck. I'm doing it aren't I?"

"He's up ahead, we have to cut him off before he doubles back."

Morrison pulled Kyung-tae up a steep incline by his shoulder equipment straps. There he was, now standing on a brush filled slope. Morrison knitted his brows giving Kyung-tae a look. Kyung-tae had crouched, he held his knee, pushing around his kneecap. Morrison spoke in low steady base tones.

"He's at the base of a sheer rock face now. He can't go up and he can't go right, it slopes to vertical. It's two hundred feet to bolders below. He has to come this way."

"There's still a lot of jungle to cover ahead. He can hide anywhere in there. Wait... this seems wrong. He's got to know this terrain? I mean... didn't he run straight in this direction?"

"Well... what's he gonna do then? If he knows its a dead end?"

"I don't know... it's just..."

Morrison held out his cell phone. One Twelve in the AM. Kyung-tae took a close look at the photo. He studied the man's face on the phone - that face was young. Much younger than Kyung-tae. The obtained picture was nearly impossible to get, for the man had lived in silence like a reluctant spirit uninterested in inhabiting a human body. A single photo had been sought after for three years. Tonight they had chased him out of his twenty two bedroom mansion. In the photo the eyes were brown, with dense dark brow. His face was covered in a thick but closely shaven black beard.

"Over six thousand children."

Just as Morrison turned to face Kyung-tae, a bullet hole appeared at the center of Morrison's forehead sounding like the slap of a hand on a wet thigh. The thump of a suppressed rifle arrived. Morrison stood there, bewildered but ultimately very much cognizant. He turned back around to look right at Kyung-tae, and whispered out.

"He's got IR."

Morrison's eyes clouded over, frozen in the last thought and he fell forward into Kyung-tae. He cradled Morrison down to the ground, while pulling out his own weapon. He slipped forward in a panic and down on his stomach. He lay there in mild shock. His fingers went up to his ear piece. He could could feel his heart jumping out of his chest.

"Morrison is dead. I'm about... fifty yards from the mark I believe..."

"Proceed."

"What?"

"Proceed and complete the objective."

"Can you send in a bird and get me? I'm outgunned here. I need backup I'm..."

"Complete the mission."

The voice in the earpiece was steady, even, but miles away. There would be no rescue, no backup relief, not here in Thailand. They weren't given any permission to do what they were attempting to do.

Jail in Thailand. This is going to end badly. I'm in the shit this time.

He crawled back up to Morrison's body and fumbled through Morrison's rucksack. He removed the covers on the lenses 0n Morrison's IR unit and held down a power button. He unscrewed the bottom and attached the periscope option. The jungle lay before him in shades of blacks, dark greens, and yellow outlines. And there, he could see, between shadows was the half outline of the shooter. The glowing figure held a scoped rifle on Kyung-tae's position.

He fucking lured us out here! Fuck!"

Kyung-tae slid back and stayed low on the slope. For a moment he lay on his back just breathing, and thinking. He moved then, rummaging through Morrison's bag again.

He gathered two flares, Morrison's handgun, the extra clips, and his cell phone. He Stuffed two rubber gloves full of items from the bag, and recycled other bags for making even more flammables. He crawled away, always staying low behind a slope - out of IR detection. A voice rang out just then startling Kyung-tae.

"You have zero options. I got you covered. ...It was... nothing personal about Morrison... I'm just a man trying to survive you understand."

Kyung-tae stopped packing in the materials. There was a long silence. He drew in a deep breath before yelling out.

"When I put a round in your head, please remember it's nothing personal."

A second later a bullitt tapped the leaves just above Kyung-tae's position. A sub-base resounding thump from the suppressor made his body twitch.

He lit a flare, then tossed it up, onto higher ground towards the shooter. It started to burn the brush,  and small bushes. The small bank was about ten feet across and separated from the rest of the forest by twenty feet of gravel.

Kyung-tae watched through the periscope. There was only a flare of yellow light and nothing else, over cranking the IR filters.

Kyung-tar could hear the crackle of burning materials. He had used everything in the bags including the bags themselves.

Kyung-tae kept moving carefully forward, toward the fire. He checked the shooters position. He was still there.

Twenty seven meters away. He looked through the scope. No half outline.

He's moved.

The shooter had to be close, had to be behind a tree or laying flat. Kyung-tae pulled the triggers back on both autos in each hand. He imagined taking the rifle bullet in his chest, then imagined the fading of his vision. His heart was pounding now. He wanted to silence it. His mind repeated. Move slower, hear the silence. He stood, his knee burned, and both guns spread.

A sudden sound, his own foot sliding, a suppressed flash, the sound of a water balloon bursting. Kyung-tae fired six rounds - both autos in the direction of the flash before hitting the ground. He hears the charge of feet coming at him. The suppressed flash, the thump thump thump of the shooter's rifle closer and closer still. Dead leafs exploded on either side of his body. Kyung-tae rolled in the foliage while firing directly into the flash now only yards away.

A shadow landed face down, inches from Kyung-tae. The shooter's rifle was at his feet. He pushed the body over, face up. The man was still breathing. Blood pumped out of his chest. Only one bullet had found him. Kyung-tae said nothing while they looked into each other's eyes.

- - -

Kyung-tae sinched up his tie then put an arm through the black shoulder holster adjusting the position of his gun. The agent glanced over catching a glimpse of a clear lexan grip.

"How'd you get that past administration? That's an ASP?"

Kyung-tae nodded, unable to muster any enthusiasm.

"Can I?"

He handed it to him.

"Shit, what's it weigh?"

"Just under eight ounces loaded. It's been altered. The frame is titanium with additional graphene based nanocomposite polymer parts."

"What's the recoil like?"

"You have to adjust for it, I also use a much lower grain in the cartridge, just over six hundred feet per second, for minimizing unintended targets."

The agent handed it back.

"I can't afford equipment like that."

Kyung-tae could launch into a lengthy explanation but knew it would lead to more talk, and then more conversations, words that would lead to more words. Revealing details that he knew he shouldn't. Details can reveal your pattern.

The agent clipped the NSA photo badge on his sport coat. It was red, his clearance level unspecified. Kyung-tae's was blue, not cleared for TS/SI (Top secret and Special Intelligence) yet, but today might be the day, he thought. They walked quickly down a featureless hallway passing by other NSA employees all wearing suits and badges of different clearance colors, they stopped in front of a locked office door. A magnetic swipe sat to the right.

"This is it for me. Hell of a job on that case in Thailand. You've made a name for yourself."

"I'd prefer if it Morrison was still alive."

"Then maybe you'd be the dead one? Think about it. We all know the risks out there. It was night... so it could've been you. Right?"

The agent walked down the hall leaving Kyung-tae at the door.

He swiped his badge through the magnetic reader and the lock clicked open. He stepped into a dark room. A sixty inch LED screen lit the room in a red glow, the lock snapped loudly into place behind him. The NSA logo with the word top secret on the screen waited there.