The Blue Velvet Trap - Chapter 38

「Otto.」

Ivlik called out to the young guard with his arms resting on the baton.

「Want me to give you a warning? Don’t be hasty to sleep with her. She’s the type of woman who relieves research stress in bed. She’ll probably beat your as$ until it’s bruised.」

Otto, who had turned around, stared blankly at Ivlik for a moment, seemingly at a loss for words. Unlike his colleague who doubted if it was true because she didn’t look like that at all, Otto’s ears turned red.

「That’s… even better.」

「What the hell, you bastard. You had that kind of taste? You little sh*t.」

The guards left. Ivlik stood askew with one leg propped up, then opened the iron door in the middle of the corridor.

“Honey.”

“Ah, damn it. Ah, sh*t.”

Cedine, who had her ear pressed against the triple secret safe, glared at Ivlik with a startled expression.

“I almost had a heart attack. Do you want to die?”

“Honey, I heard that Otto asked you out on a date yesterday and was rejected. Undeterred, he tried again today and was told that I’m your ex-husband, and that’s why you feel uncomfortable.”

“What on earth……”

Cedine couldn’t hide her bewilderment.

“Do you have to tell me this right now? I need to open the safe, you know. I have to decipher the confidential documents and memorize the results.”

“Why didn’t you tell me yesterday that you were asked out on a date?”

Cedine closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

“Wife?”

“I was too busy yesterday to even catch my breath. Besides, it wasn’t important.”

“It’s important to me.”

“More important than the operation?”

“……Almost equally important.”

“If you’re going to approach it with that mindset, let me work with a different agent next time. And Ivlik, you are my ex-husband, aren’t you? When I return to being Cedine Wintermore instead of Sophia Becker, I’ll call you my current husband again.”

Ivlik quietly stared at his wife, who was chattering away without even looking at him. Cedine’s forehead, frowning as she tried to suppress her rising irritation, was elegant, and her nose bridge was truly artistic.

Lady Wintermore, who exuded an increasingly captivating aura as days passed, was a hard-to-catch popular figure in social circles. When she was away from her home country on missions like now, she didn’t show her face at parties at all, so it was no wonder that people in social circles were anxious.

Anyway, for the past four months, Cedine had spent most of her mornings in front of the mirror to disguise herself as Sophia Becker, who spends most of her day cooped up in the lab. She brilliantly concealed the vitality that used to shine through even when she wore black mourning clothes, with large glasses and pale makeup.

It was annoying that Otto recognized her beauty beyond the disguise and lusted after her. And the guy who encouraged Otto. The bastard who carelessly mentioned her chest had been someone he wanted to teach a lesson to for a while.

“Got it……”

The secret safe door opened in Cedine’s hands. Ivlik watched as she quickly entered the safe and searched for the confidential documents. If Ivlik’s specialty was extracting confessions through torture, Cedine’s specialty was decrypting codes. What Cedine was doing now was beyond his capabilities.

‘She’s one of the best in the Intelligence Bureau. She’ll be promoted first, surpassing her peers.’

It was heartwarming just to look at her. Ivlik was proud of his wife, who was an outstanding agent during the day and became even more excellent at night.

That’s when it happened.

There was a commotion outside. Cedine, who had just pulled out a file and started reading it, looked at the door in shock. Ivlik carefully peeked through the door crack. Sound was echoing in the corridor. The direction from which the group was approaching was to the left of the confidential document room door. Judging by the voices, there were about 5 people. Maybe 6.

Lunch time had just ended. Researchers don’t make such a ruckus. This means that guards armed with rifles are coming this way. They’re randomly opening doors under the pretext of patrol.

‘Still, they’ll believe the confidential document room is locked. They won’t touch it. Should we close the door and wait quietly for them to pass?’

Ivlik changed his mind. What Cedine was doing now was too important to rely on luck. There won’t be a second chance. They need to succeed on the first attempt and escape the research facility premises on time. Their home country said they couldn’t guarantee their safety after this afternoon.

“Cedine.”

Ivlik turned to her and said.

“Remember. We must leave the building before 2:59 PM. If I’m not out by then, go to the post office first and send a telegram.”

“Are you deliberately getting caught?”

“Yes, we talked about this yesterday, remember?”

Cedine nodded slightly. As he was leaving the document room, a faint voice was heard behind him.

“Be careful, Ivlik.”

There’s an Army Lieutenant Colonel who keeps participating in operations just because he doesn’t want to send his wife alone, even though he’s not an Intelligence Bureau agent. The Intelligence Bureau, finding no way to exclude Ivlik, decided to give special permission only for missions that Cedine takes on.

Of course, this would have been impossible if Ivlik’s skills were lacking.

He carefully closed the confidential document room door, which could only be locked from the outside. Then, he quickly went down to the lower floor through the stairs on the right side of the corridor. He aimed at the window and fired his gun, causing a loud noise to echo throughout the corridor.

It’s absurd, but gunshots are commonplace at Kohlrov Research Institute, and once a gunshot is heard, researchers never come out into the corridor.

The armed guards are the ones who react quickly to gunshots. As expected, the upper floor became noisy, and soon the sound of military boots was heard. A nasty group among the guards aimed their guns at Ivlik’s back. Someone took away Ivlik’s rifle.

「Yanick Richter…? Why did you do this?」

Ivlik chose silence. Even as he was dragged away and tied to a chair, he regretted not being able to handle it in his own way.

‘The guards report every hour. It’s okay to be a few minutes late for reporting, but if you don’t show up at all, they start searching. Thanks to that stupid rule, human trash like you get to live two more hours.’

But what if Cedine sends a signal that she’s finished the job?

‘We’ll see then.’

Coincidentally, it was a group of people whose faces Ivlik wanted to smash.

* * *

Two hours later, back to the present.

Meanwhile, Cedine was decoding the confidential documents. The Kohlrov Research Institute, not satisfied with just a triple secret safe, always recorded the last page of the documents in code. Not everyone who entered and exited the institute knew all the codes. Only a handful of researchers with top-level security clearance learned the codes, and all confidential documents were written by their hands.

Before infiltrating the institute, the team supporting Cedine tried every means to approach the code. They wanted to grasp at least what kind of format it was. However, it was impossible to obtain any related information from the outside. In the end, everything depended on Cedine’s hands.

[Are you going with the Lieutenant Colonel again this time?]

Iliana, an agent who was in the elite course with Cedine, asked as she saw her off.

[Yes, he says he absolutely can’t let me go alone.]
[Really, that’s unusual. How romantic.]
[I think the Army Ministry might have hinted at something. They said they’d consider a promotion if we go a bit further and complete a more dangerous mission.]
[Oh ho.]

Iliana playfully hit Cedine’s arm.

[So you’re going to be a Colonel’s wife now?]
[I don’t understand why someone with so much money and a title is so ambitious for success… By the way, Davian, who went on a mission with you last time. He seemed like a good person. Nice personality too. Was he our senior by two years?]
[He’s two years senior to you and one year to me. You, Lady Wintermore, became my cute junior when you left the elite course as soon as you got married. Anyway, Davian was really reliable. I made a series of mistakes in the middle because I was so flustered. Without even blinking, he solved it and then said, ‘They didn’t send two people for nothing. I’ll cover for you even if you make some mistakes. Just relax and do it.’]