seventeen

                                    

                                          
Weeks later 
Chan
It had been about a month since I was assigned this mission, so far we've been only inching closer and closer to find him, only to hear the next morning another victim had been taken in the string mysterious murders. I found it very obscure how he always seemed a step ahead. It's if he knew we were targeting him, we even have some of the best tracking technology, yet he remains off the map. I'm now resorting to driving around late at night trying to track him, yet we still can't really find him.
As much as I want to dedicate my time into tracking him down, I have been drowning in dozens of meetings and paperwork regarding the future of our companies. Not only that, but also the work we do under-the-table as well as planning with Jia Mei and her family for our engagement party coming up next week--it was supposed to be a few weeks ago, but we were so busy that we had to push it back. I was becoming a little overwhelmed with everything happening, but I need to remain grounded and tough it out for now.
Walking into the Royal One-Seven building, I head into the elevator. Scanning my key card, my handprint, and entering a code.
"Access granted. Welcome back, Lee Chan."
The automated voice greeted me as a hidden button revealed itself. Pressing the button, the elevator goes down to the floor that not even employees with the highest seniority know about: Our headquarters and base of operations; an area only authorized specifically to the members of the Diamond Clan.
Stepping out of the elevator, I'm met with a few of the members seated at their desks. The others? They're probably working in-office from their corresponding department. Wonwoo, Seungkwan, Hansol, Jeonghan, and Junhui working on whatever assignment at the moment. Whether it was monitoring locations of where the victims were dumped off, going through the archive of deals or trades we've taken part of in the past, or doing some actual office work. The room was really quiet until I began walking through, drawing their attention to me and greeting me briefly before going back to what they were doing. Walking up behind Hansol, I asked him in a hushed voice "Can you do some research for me?"
He nods and questions "What do you need to find out about?"
Taking out my phone, I show him the logo that had showed up on my screen the first time I video called with Lady Ari. During our most recent debriefing, I took a picture of the logo as the call was connecting. While showing him the logo, I began to instruct him on what to do:
"I saw this logo on my laptop screen as I was connecting to a video call to the one who requested us to protect Jia Mei, I was wondering if you could do some background research on the logo of this group. I also emailed it to you as well so that you didn't have to constantly come to me to see it again."
Nodding, he goes straight into his email and opens up the image file I sent him. He quietly studies the image for a moment, specifically the word at the bottom, quietly muttering "Rosaceae, huh?" , and he immediately gets right to typing away on his computer.
I smiled, knowing about how trustworthy he is. Many people seem to underestimate Hansol and only view him as some sort of weird acting airhead, wondering why or how he got selected to join the team anyway. Little do they know, he's an amazing tactician and strategist, and he's great at decoding anything strange text or code--heck, I was caught off guard with the fact that he was able to read the "Rosaceae" while I struggled to figure out that they were letters to begin with. Additionally, he's also had numerous connections since childhood, so he can find out information about anything on anyone if he's asked.
I soon take my seat at my desk and began doing my own research on Lei Longwei. The second I typed his name into the search bar, there's millions of pictures and articles all about him along with common information everyone knows.