Lee Jiwoo
Kim Taejoon parked the truck in an underground garage in Gangnam, three blocks from Secretary Ahn's apartment building.
"He gets home around 8 PM," Kim Taejoon said, pulling equipment from a duffel bag in the back. "Takes the same route every night, stops at the same convenience store for beer and cigarettes. Creature of habit."
"And we're just going to walk up to him?"
"You are." He handed me a small device that looked like a USB drive. "I'll be three blocks away in a surveillance van. This transmits everything within a ten-meter radius, battery life about four hours."
I turned the device over in my hands. It was smaller than my thumb. "Where do I put it?"
"Jacket pocket, shirt pocket, anywhere you can access it quickly if you need to turn it off." He pulled out what looked like a pen. "This is backup. Button on top activates recording. If the first one fails, use this."
"What if he doesn't want to talk to me?"
"Then you make him want to talk." Kim Taejoon met my eyes. "Your brother trusted him five years ago. Secretary Ahn was going to help him expose everything. You need to remind him why."
"And if he calls security?"
"He won't. Because he knows if Chairman Kang finds out we contacted him, he's dead." Kim Taejoon checked his watch. "7:42 PM. He'll leave the office in eight minutes. You have twenty minutes to get into position."
"What position?"
"The convenience store where he stops. You'll approach him there, tell him you need to talk somewhere private. His apartment is two blocks away and he'll take you there because it's the only place he thinks is safe."
"How do you know all this?"
"Because I've been watching him for five years, waiting for the right moment to approach him." Kim Taejoon handed me an earpiece. "Put this in. I'll be able to hear everything and guide you if needed."
I put the earpiece in and it felt wrong, like I was in a spy movie instead of real life. "What if this goes wrong?"
"Then you run. I'll have the van waiting on the north side of his building, emergency exit leads directly there." He showed me a photo on his phone. "This door, right here. Memorize it."
I studied the photo until I could see it with my eyes closed.
"One more thing." Kim Taejoon pulled out a small canister. "Pepper spray. Just in case."
"You think Secretary Ahn is dangerous?"
"I think everyone connected to Chairman Kang is dangerous until proven otherwise." He checked his watch again. "7:45. Go."
I got out of the truck and walked three blocks to the convenience store Kim Taejoon had described. It was one of those 24-hour places that sold everything from instant noodles to phone chargers, fluorescent lights making everything look washed out and tired.
I pretended to browse the refrigerated section while watching the door.
At exactly 7:58 PM, Secretary Ahn walked in.
He looked older than I remembered from the office, more worn down. His tie was loosened and his shoulders slumped like he was carrying weight that never went away. He went straight to the alcohol section and grabbed two cans of beer, then to the counter for cigarettes.
I waited until he paid and headed for the door.
"Secretary Ahn." I stepped into his path.
He looked up and his face went pale. "Lee Jiwoo."
"We need to talk."
"I don't— how did you—" He looked around frantically. "You need to leave. If they see us together—"
"They already know I'm alive. They chased me through Gangnam Station this afternoon." I kept my voice low. "And they're going to kill you next."
His hands tightened on the plastic bag. "What are you talking about?"
"Can we talk somewhere private?"
"No. Whatever you think you know, I can't help you." He tried to move past me but I blocked him.
"My brother trusted you," I said. "Five years ago he came to you with evidence and you promised to help him. Then he died and you disappeared."
Secretary Ahn's face crumpled slightly. "I couldn't— you don't understand—"
"Then help me understand. Please."
He stared at me for a long moment, and I watched him decide. Fear warred with guilt on his face, and I didn't know which would win.
"My apartment," he finally said. "Two blocks. Don't follow too closely."
He left and I waited thirty seconds before following.
Kim Taejoon's voice crackled in my earpiece. "Good. He's going exactly where we expected. I'm moving the van into position now."
Secretary Ahn's building was one of those newer luxury complexes with a doorman and security cameras everywhere. He nodded to the doorman and I followed him to the elevator, and we rode up to the fourteenth floor in complete silence.
His apartment was neat and impersonal, like a hotel room where someone had been living for years without ever making it home. Minimal furniture, no photos, nothing that suggested a real life existed here.
"Sit." He gestured to the couch and set his beer on the coffee table with hands that shook slightly. "How did you find me?"
"Does it matter?"
"Yes, it matters. Because if you found me that easily, they can too." He sat across from me and opened one of the beer cans, taking a long drink. "What do you want?"
"The same thing my brother wanted five years ago. Help exposing what Chairman Kang has done."
"Your brother is dead because he wanted that help."
"And seven other people are dead too. How many more before you do something?" I leaned forward. "You've been covering for him for five years. How do you sleep at night?"
"I don't." He drank more beer. "I haven't slept properly since your brother died."
"Then help me stop it."
"I can't." His voice broke slightly. "You don't understand what he's capable of—"
"I know he's killed seven people. I know he's embezzled three billion won. I know he admitted it to his own son today." I pulled out my phone and played the recording I'd made of Jihoon's call, Chairman Kang's voice clear and calm as he threatened to eliminate threats.
Secretary Ahn listened with tears running down his face.
"He's going to kill Jihoon," he whispered when it ended. "His own son."
"Not if we stop him first." I put my phone away. "You have records. My brother told his contact that you were keeping copies of everything as insurance."
"I was. But after Minho died I destroyed them."
"You're lying."
"I'm not—"
"Yes you are, because if you'd destroyed them you wouldn't look so terrified right now." I pulled the recording pen from my pocket, not activating it yet. "You kept the records because you knew someday you might need them. Either to protect yourself or to bargain with. Where are they?"
"Even if I had them, giving them to you would be suicide."
"Keeping them is suicide too." I leaned closer. "Chairman Kang gave you a folder this afternoon. In the parking garage, three hours ago. What was in it?"
His face went gray. "How do you know about that?"
"Because I've been watching you the same way you've been watching everyone else." The lie came easily. "What was in the folder?"
Secretary Ahn stood and walked to the window, looking down at Seoul spread out below. "A termination order. Not an employment termination, the other kind."
"For who?"
"Me. And two other executives who know too much." His voice was flat. "We have until the end of the month to tie up loose ends and then we're scheduled for accidents. Very tragic, very unavoidable."
"So help us stop him."
"How? He controls everything—security, legal, the board of directors. Even if I came forward with evidence, he'd discredit me before I finished talking."
"Not if we go to prosecutors with everything at once. Not if we have enough evidence that it can't be buried." I stood and walked over to him. "Kim Taejoon has contacts at the prosecutor's office who are already investigating. With your testimony and the records we found, it would be enough."
"Kim Taejoon." Secretary Ahn laughed bitterly. "That's who you're working with? He's been trying to bring down Chairman Kang for years and getting nowhere."
"Because he didn't have inside testimony. He didn't have you."
"I won't testify."
"Then you'll die." I said it bluntly. "End of the month, maybe sooner if Chairman Kang decides to move up the timeline. You'll have an accident and they'll find your body and everyone will say what a tragedy it was. Just like they said about my brother."
Secretary Ahn was crying openly now, shoulders shaking. "Minho was a good kid. He was smart and careful and he didn't deserve what happened."
"No, he didn't. But you can make it mean something." I put my hand on his arm. "Help me finish what he started."
He turned to look at me and I saw twenty years of guilt and fear and complicity in his eyes. "If I do this, I'm dead anyway. Even if we take down Chairman Kang, his connections will hunt me down."
"Then at least you'll die knowing you did the right thing."
"That's supposed to be comforting?"
"It's more than my brother got."
We stood there in silence and I watched him decide between dying as a coward or dying as someone who'd finally found courage.
"The records are in a safety deposit box," he finally said. "Gangnam branch of KB Bank. I check it once a month to make sure they're still there."
"What's in them?"
"Everything. Twenty years of transfer records, authorization documents with Chairman Kang's signature, communications between him and the people who carried out the murders." He wiped his face roughly. "Enough to put him away for life if we can get them to the right people."
Kim Taejoon's voice crackled in my earpiece. "Tell him we need access to that box. Tonight if possible."
I repeated the message.
Secretary Ahn shook his head. "The bank is closed. We'd have to wait until morning."
"Can you get us in after hours?"
"How? Break in?"
"You've worked with Chairman Kang for twenty years. You must know people who can get us into a bank." I pulled out the recording pen and activated it. "I need you to tell me everything you know. Every detail about the accounts, the murders, the people involved. On the record."
He stared at the pen. "If I do this, there's no going back."
"You already can't go back. You're on the termination list."
"Then I guess I don't have a choice." He sat down heavily on the couch. "Where do you want me to start?"
"Start with my father. Han Jungsoo. How did he die?"
Secretary Ahn closed his eyes. "Potassium injection. They made it look like a heart attack because your father had a history of high blood pressure. The autopsy didn't check for it because why would they?"
My hands clenched into fists. "Who gave the order?"
"Chairman Kang. Your father had found discrepancies in executive expense reports, was going to report them to the board. So Chairman Kang ordered him eliminated."
"And you knew about this?"
"I found out after. When Chairman Kang told me we needed to make sure no one else was investigating the same issues." He opened his eyes. "I've been complicit in cover-ups for fifteen years. But the actual murders, those started seven years ago when the embezzlement operation expanded."
"Why did it expand?"
"Because Chairman Kang's political connections needed funding. He was supporting candidates who would give Haneul Group favorable treatment, and that required massive amounts of untraceable money."
Kim Taejoon's voice: "Ask him about the offshore structure."
"The offshore accounts," I said. "How do they work?"
"It's a shell company structure. Money from Haneul Group gets transferred to legitimate-looking consulting firms, then those firms transfer it to offshore accounts in the Caymans. From there it gets redistributed to political campaigns through clean channels." Secretary Ahn rubbed his face. "Your brother figured out the structure. He found the pattern in server logs that showed the transfers."
"And when he contacted you?"
"He came to me with printouts of the logs and asked if I knew what they meant. I panicked and told him to drop it, that he was looking at sensitive executive business. He said he was going to take it to prosecutors." Secretary Ahn's voice dropped. "Three days later his brakes failed and his car went off a bridge."
"Did you warn Chairman Kang?"
"No. But I didn't have to. Your brother had already been flagged by security for accessing restricted servers. They were monitoring everything he did." He looked at me directly. "The day he came to me was the day they decided to eliminate him. I just didn't know it until after."
I wanted to hit him. Wanted to scream at him for being a coward, for letting my brother die, for covering up murders for twenty years.
But I needed him functional, not broken down.
"What about the others? Director Han, Park Sunbae, the rest?"
"All similar. They found pieces of the operation and started asking questions. Director Han noticed expense irregularities, Park Sunbae tracked unauthorized transfers, Jung Mirae saw communications that didn't match official records." He listed them like inventory. "All eliminated within six months of getting close."
"And Jihoon?"
"Chairman Kang loves his son. But love has limits when billions of won and political power are at stake." Secretary Ahn stood and walked to a cabinet, pulling out a bottle of whiskey. "He's been trying to decide all day whether Jihoon can be salvaged or if he's too far gone."
"What does that mean?"
"It means if Jihoon proves he can be brought back in line—if he stops investigating and returns to being the obedient CEO—then he lives. But if he keeps digging, keeps working with you..." He poured whiskey into a glass. "Then he becomes victim number eight."
"We need to warn him."
"You can't. His phone is monitored, his movements are tracked. Any contact puts him in more danger." Secretary Ahn drank the whiskey in one gulp. "The only way to save him is to move fast enough that Chairman Kang doesn't have time to act."
"Then help us move fast. Get us into that bank tonight."
He poured more whiskey. "I know someone. Security contractor who does work for Haneul Group. He can disable the alarm system and get us into the vault, but it'll cost money."
"How much?"
"Ten million won, probably. Maybe more."
I didn't have ten million won. I barely had enough money for next month's rent.
Kim Taejoon's voice: "Tell him it's handled. I'll have the money ready within an hour."
I repeated it and Secretary Ahn looked surprised. "Kim Taejoon has that kind of money?"
"He's been preparing for this for five years. He has resources." I hoped that was true. "Can you contact your security contractor?"
"I'll call him now." Secretary Ahn pulled out his phone. "But if we do this tonight, if we break into that bank and take those records, Chairman Kang will know immediately. He monitors my safety deposit box access."
"Then we go straight to prosecutors from there. No stops, no delays."
"They'll kill us before we make it to the prosecutor's office."
"Not if we're smart about it." I pulled out my phone and started typing a message to Kim Taejoon, then remembered it was still disassembled. "I need to use your phone."
"It's monitored—"
"I know. But Kim Taejoon will be monitoring it too, and he'll know what to do." I held out my hand.
Secretary Ahn hesitated, then unlocked his phone and gave it to me.
I opened a browser and navigated to a generic news site, then typed a comment on a random article: "Gangnam KB Bank. Midnight. Need extraction plan to prosecutor's office. -J"
Kim Taejoon would be watching Secretary Ahn's internet activity. He'd see the message.
I handed the phone back. "Call your security contractor. Tell him midnight, and tell him it's urgent."
Secretary Ahn made the call while I stood at the window looking down at Seoul's lights. Somewhere in this city Jihoon was trapped in Haneul Group headquarters, probably in his office, probably being watched by security.
I'd promised him one hour before I went to the police.
That hour had passed three hours ago.
He probably thought I'd abandoned him or been caught or worse.
I pulled out the recording pen and checked it. Still recording, thirty-eight minutes so far.
When Secretary Ahn hung up I turned back to him. "I need you to keep talking. Everything you know about every murder, every account, every person involved. We need it all on record."
"Why? I'm going to testify anyway—"
"Because if something happens to you between now and testifying, this recording is our backup." I set the pen on the coffee table between us. "Start with Director Han's death and don't leave anything out."
Secretary Ahn looked at the pen for a long moment, then at me, then at the half-empty whiskey bottle.
"Okay," he said. "Okay."
And he started talking.