You Sound Like an Uncle
Tae Seok-ho sat at a table inside Seunghwa’s set-meal restaurant in Donui-dong, Jongno-gu, pouring soju into a glass and drinking alone. Before long, a knock sounded and the door opened. Jeon Jun-seok, executive director of Tae Shin Life, stepped inside and bowed deeply.
“It’s been a while….”
“Skip the pleasantries. Sit down and take a drink.”
Jeon Jun-seok, lips pressed into a thin line, approached hesitantly and lowered himself into the seat across the table.
Both men’s glasses were filled and promptly emptied in one swallow.
Soon Tae Seok-ho’s expression turned icy as he stared at the other man.
“You said the board has flipped?”
“I’m sorry. I should have been more vigilant….”
“I don’t need useless excuses. Is it true you were beaten by Kang In-hyuk?”
Jeon Jun-seok bit his lip hard once, then spoke slowly.
“…According to Executive Director Oh, yes.”
“What method did he use?”
“Blackmail. After pressing a few of them, it seems he used evidence of embezzlement and other illegal acts from previous projects to squeeze them.”
“So he grabbed them by their weak points. But how the hell did Kang In-hyuk even learn about those weaknesses? Hasn’t he been lying low at Tae Shin Asset Management?”
“That’s what I find strange too. Actually, we can’t even be certain the blackmailer was Division Head Kang In-hyuk himself. Each of them received an email containing proof of their crimes along with a warning to keep quiet. People are simply assuming it was him because he benefited the most from the situation.”
Tae Seok-ho let out a low groan.
“As I suspected… there really is someone behind Kang In-hyuk.”
It was one theory he had been turning over for some time.
The sudden rejection of his proposal, combined with the fact that Kang In-hyuk—who had barely made a ripple in Taeshin Mulsan’s sales department—was now pulling in massive capital and succeeding in every investment, had felt far too unnatural.
“You’re saying he has a separate backer?”
“It’s still only a guess. So what does Tae Shin Asset Management plan to do about it? At this rate, we won’t be able to interfere with the Cheolsan Capital bid, will we?”
He had already synchronized steps with Omega Finance and secured the necessary funds.
Even so, Tae Seok-ho refused to relax. Too many variables had already deviated from the original plan; he was preparing with obsessive thoroughness.
“Without any guarantee that something like this won’t happen again, I’m afraid that’s the case for now.”
The air grew even heavier.
Tae Seok-ho refilled his glass and tossed the soju down his throat as if hurling it.
“Ugh—! You’re telling me your usefulness is over with far too calm a face, aren’t you?”
Jeon Jun-seok shot to his feet and bowed frantically.
“I-I’m sorry!”
A brief silence fell. Watching him, Tae Seok-ho emptied the newly filled glass once more.
“It would have been better if we’d eliminated any excuse for that nephew to come back in the first place… Still, I thought his influence inside Tae Shin Asset Management might prove useful, so I moved him up to Tae Shin Life. And this is the result?”
“That is…”
“I don’t want to hear any more. Go back. And for the time being, avoid any noticeable movements.”
Jeon Jun-seok bowed hastily and fled the room.
Left alone at the table, Tae Seok-ho muttered while swallowing another drink.
“What do you think I should do about Manager Lee?”
The question was aimed at Lee Jae-jun, his bodyguard, who stood by the entrance.
“If this is about the Cheolsan Capital bid, there’s no need to worry, is there?”
“Because you’ve already pulled strings in the financial sector?”
“I heard everything is proceeding according to plan.”
Tae Seok-ho gave a slow nod. Just as the man said, Silverbell Capital and AMK Partners had recently been making the rounds inquiring about loans in the financial sector.
Of course, Tae Seok-ho had used his own connections and influence to ensure those loan processes would be deliberately delayed.
“That’s true. But… something still feels off. The whole thing is flowing too smoothly. It’s almost ominous. The fact that Cheolsan Capital’s Representative Han suddenly disappeared is strange too.”
He had learned that the true owner of Cheolsan Capital was Jang Hyeong-cheol. With help from Baek Ji-woong, chairman of W&W Group, he had pulled strings at the prosecutor’s office. If Han Jae-won’s scheme had succeeded, the H&T Fund would have swallowed the company and that would have been the end of it.
Instead every single part of the plan had twisted from start to finish, leaving them in the current mess.
“If there’s anything else you need, I’ll deploy people to investigate.”
“Has Jang Hyeong-cheol made any other moves lately?”
“Aside from meeting Division Head Kang In-hyuk at a place called Hanul a few days ago to discuss the Cheolsan Capital bid, there was nothing unusual.”
They had kept people on Jang Hyeong-cheol specifically to monitor the bid.
“Tae Shin Asset Management must be managing his money well. Their relationship seems to have grown quite close.”
“Which is why the bid could have been handled entirely in-house. He must have entrusted it on purpose.”
“For now, put more people on the working-level staff at AMK and Silverbell. The moment you notice any other movements, report them immediately.”
“Understood.”
Having finished the conversation, Tae Seok-ho left the restaurant with Lee Jae-jun.
“As you instructed, I’ve completed loan inquiries with every appropriate financial institution. They’re all giving the impression that it should be possible and simply telling me to wait for now.”
“You’ve done well.”
“Do you know who’s orchestrating moves like this?”
Norman McGrath possessed considerable experience in the markets; he understood the current situation perfectly. While carrying out In-hyuk’s orders he had investigated on his own, yet he had been unable to identify any bank-affiliated player among the companies participating in the bid.
“It’s Omega Finance.”
“But… from what I understand, they’ve already taken on heavy facility and operating loans. Additional borrowing will be difficult, and their equity ratio is rather low. Looking only at the numbers, their conditions are worse than ours or Silverbell’s.”
“They’ve probably prepared a separate channel to raise funds—just as we have.”
“Do you already know where that is, by any chance?”
He asked with clear doubt. That was how highly Norman McGrath regarded the abilities of the man currently operating under the alias Gordon Grimes.
“It’s the H&T Fund. Ah, I’ll handle that side myself, so do not send anyone to approach it.”
“Ah….”
Norman McGrath’s voice trembled slightly over the line. Had In-hyuk not spoken first, he would have moved on his own without hesitation.
“I know you have a habit of double- and triple-checking everything. But I’m handling this plan well, so trust me and follow my lead.”
“That part doesn’t worry me. I simply haven’t heard the reason we’re trying to acquire Cheolsan Capital… Could you tell me now? Honestly, that company’s only real asset is its cash liquidity. Everything else is bonds, real estate, and stocks. AMK Partners isn’t entering the finance business, is it?”
A faint chuckle escaped In-hyuk.
Of course the man wasn’t wrong. Cheolsan Capital generated profit through loan interest. AMK Partners, on the other hand, produced several times that amount in a short period through investments; from that perspective the acquisition could indeed look pointless.
“Even the man once called the Gold Eye lacks the insight to read my intentions?”
“Ahem—! Why are you suddenly using my old name?”
Gold Eye was the nickname he had earned while operating in the Middle East before joining Fourgma. Back then he had been a lobbyist who crossed freely between legal and illegal channels, so the name carried no favorable connotation.
“It’s proof of how many extraordinary deals you once closed. In any case, you won’t lose anything on this matter either, so set your worries aside.”
“…Understood. I’ll trust you, Representative.”
The call ended there.
Meanwhile Go Mi-ah, who had been hammering away at her keyboard beside him, looked up at In-hyuk with an incredulous expression.
“I’ve been thinking this for a while… Boss, what’s with your speech lately?”
“What’s wrong with the way I speak?”
“It’s way too uncle-like. Are you doing it on purpose?”
In-hyuk had been about to tilt his head when the reason hit him without difficulty.
Is it because of the years I lived before?
Of course, he had only been forty-five when he met death. Yet having dealt with so many difficult people, the weight of experience had accumulated unconsciously and become a habit in his speech.
“I didn’t even realize it myself.”
“Is it just because you’re basically an old man?”
“Well… that could be part of it. It’s not exactly wrong. Anyway, what are you working on?”
Even while talking, Go Mi-ah’s fingers never stopped dancing across the keyboard.
“That phone we analyzed last time. I found more records of messages exchanged in similar patterns. I cross-referenced them with nationwide base-station logs and overseas satellite communication records, then plotted them on the map using timestamps and trilateration.”
In-hyuk stared at the monitor with open surprise.
Across the world map on screen, thin red lines like threads were being drawn busily in every direction.
“How did you filter the signals? Did you have a reference code to pinpoint them? Or… was it the cipher itself?”
“Exactly.”
“But a double-transposition cipher would make accurate filtering difficult.”
In-hyuk had considered the same method. Yet with nothing but randomly arranged letters, isolating the actual ciphered messages had proven nearly impossible.
“I entered an insane number of filtering keywords. That’s why I’ve been up for three straight nights and I’m about to die from lack of sleep.”
As she spoke, heavy dark circles were clearly visible beneath Go Mi-ah’s eyes.
“You’ve worked hard. But this many signals were captured?”
The red lines on the map looked like dozens of overlapping spider webs. They especially clustered as if dividing the globe into Asia, Europe, South America, and North America.
“There are more than I expected.”
So many that the lines, which had been drawn rapidly at first, gradually slowed as the program struggled under the load.
“I never thought the new machine I bought would reach this state in less than a year.”
“Spend whatever you need and get a new one. If necessary, buy an entire building and install a supercomputer.”
Go Mi-ah’s head snapped toward him in shock.
“Really?!”
“I have to reward skill with proper treatment. Also, zoom in on the concentration points in the United States and Korea.”
“Okay!”
The screen changed instantly according to his request.
“How many years of data is this?”
“Years? Hardly. Customer data might be kept five to ten years depending on use, but communication records don’t last nearly that long. Twelve months at most, six at the shortest. These are all within that window. The satellite records are similar—private satellite comms can be as short as three months.”
The realization that ciphered messages had been crisscrossing the globe for only about a year left In-hyuk genuinely stunned.
“No new records?”
“Either the people who created the cipher changed the code, or nothing else was caught by the filter.”
Staring fixedly at the screen, In-hyuk unconsciously clenched his fist.
Besides the phone he had discovered by chance, the only things he had uncovered were the close connection between Baek Si-hwan and Baek Ji-woong, chairman of W&W Group, along with a tattoo of unknown meaning.
Even among those, W&W Group was no easy opponent.
Then his eyes caught the area inside Korea where the signals were most densely concentrated.
“Zoom in on the coordinates where the signals are focused here.”
“Easy enough.”
Go Mi-ah’s fingers flew over the keys, enlarging the map’s scale.
Crack—
At the same moment, a sharp noise erupted from the corner of the desk that In-hyuk had been gripping in anticipation.