Macau (4)
Macau had been the Kim family’s money-laundering channel since the 1970s.
More than that, as a hub linking Southeast Asia and Europe, it was where North Korea carried out all of its illicit activity: drug trafficking, counterfeit currency distribution, procurement of luxury goods, even fuel purchases.
But in 2017, an unprecedentedly harsh set of sanctions against North Korea threw all of that into jeopardy.
On July 2, 2017, North Korea test-fired a Hwasong-14 intercontinental ballistic missile, timed to coincide with America’s Independence Day.
The missile flew about 933 kilometers and reached a maximum altitude of roughly 2,802 kilometers.
Experts estimated that if launched on a normal trajectory, it would have a range of more than 10,000 kilometers.
That was enough to reach the western United States mainland.
On November 22 of the same year, North Korea launched a Hwasong-15 intercontinental ballistic missile.
The maximum altitude was about 4,475 kilometers.
Launched on a normal trajectory, its maximum range would have been 13,000 kilometers.
Not just the American West Coast, but the entire United States fell within range.
International condemnation poured in.
The UN Security Council adopted an unusually severe sanctions resolution against North Korea.
Exports of North Korea’s major products—coal, iron, iron ore, lead, and more—were banned.
Its oil imports were slashed dramatically.
And the hiring of North Korean laborers overseas was suspended.
At once, the blowback hit Bureau 39, the unit responsible for raising the Kim family’s ruling funds.
High-ranking officials in Bureau 39 were purged in large numbers for failing to secure the money needed to keep the regime afloat.
In Pyongyang, even the overseas operatives of Office 35, the Reconnaissance General Bureau’s foreign intelligence arm, were ordered to come up with ruling funds.
That was why Jo Gwang-il, who had been tracking defector routes in Laos, ended up transferred to Macau.
He had to bring in money to send back to Pyongyang every month.
By any means necessary.
That was the Party’s order.
He had disguised himself as a businessman from Liaoning Province and opened illegal gambling dens with the triads.
That was also why he had taken up loan-sharking.
Whenever he went into casinos like the Venetian or Galaxy to look for people to lend money to, he sometimes found himself wondering what in the world he was doing here.
He had often seen South Korean citizens in Laos and Thailand, throwing money around without a care in the world.
But when he saw South Koreans in Macau gambling purely for fun, Jo Gwang-il was seized by a strange feeling.
To spend that kind of money just for the sake of a little fun...
Jo Gwang-il had come from a rather well-off family in Pyongyang himself.
In North Korea, simply being born in Pyongyang was a privilege in itself.
The reason he had been able to be born and raised there was that he was descended from a revolutionary hero.
His grandfather had been part of the anti-Japanese guerrillas, and even after the Fatherland Liberation War, he had stayed behind in Jirisan.
Thanks to that, Jo Gwang-il had been able to graduate from the Mangyongdae Revolutionary School with his brothers.
But the moment he enlisted and was assigned to Office 35 and sent overseas, he realized how wrong all the education he had received had been.
Of course, he had already known that South Korea had surpassed the Republic long ago.
But seeing it with his own eyes was something else entirely.
Sometimes Jo Gwang-il even dreamed of defecting.
In fact, the mission he had been assigned before coming to Macau had been to track defector routes.
More than anyone, Jo Gwang-il was confident he could succeed at defection.
And he believed that in South Korea, too, they would find a man from Office 35 like him quite useful.
But for a descendant of a revolutionary hero to defect—that was unforgivable.
His family would be killed, or forced to live a life worse than death.
So Jo Gwang-il endured.
But without liquor and women, he could not fall asleep in peace even for a single day.
And...
That was why Jo Gwang-il thought his shoulder had been sliced and a Chinese cleaver pressed to his throat.
If he had kept himself in shape, he wouldn’t have suffered this kind of humiliation at the hands of some punk barely out of his teens.
That was why he had shouted for him to cut it already.
But then the man had asked if he was from Office 35.
Jo Gwang-il had told no one in Macau that fact.
He had only told the triads that he was a Korean-Chinese from Liaoning Province.
That, too, had been the Party’s order.
And none of the men the triads had assigned to watch him—not even the ones who had just been knocked out by the South Korean bastard—knew his true identity.
Then how did this bastard know...
Kang-hae looked into the eyes of the man in the floral shirt, Jo Gwang-il.
The trembling in those eyes was answer enough.
But Jo Gwang-il still did not open his mouth.
Kang-hae tightened his grip on the cleaver.
The blade pressed deeper into the skin at Jo Gwang-il’s throat.
Drip. Drip.
Red blood spilled down from his neck.
“I won’t ask twice.”
Kang-hae murmured at him.
There was no emotion in his voice.
And the absence of emotion meant that he was telling the truth.
“You’re from Office 35.”
“...Yes.”
The instant Kang-hae heard the answer, he swung the back of the cleaver hard into the nape of Jo Gwang-il’s neck.
Jo Gwang-il blacked out and collapsed at once.
* * *
At a café in downtown Macau, Seong Ha-yeong sat waiting for Kang-hae’s call.
She had said she would go with him, but Kang-hae had refused, saying it was too dangerous.
Time dragged by.
Ha-yeong grew increasingly anxious, fearing that something might have gone wrong.
Just as she was about to call the National Security Office for help, Kang-hae’s phone call came through.
“Hello?!”
“Yes, it’s me.”
“You’re not hurt, are you?!”
“No. I’m fine.”
“Thank goodness. Really.”
“...”
Ha-yeong let out a breath of relief.
A brief, awkward silence fell between them over the line.
“I think you should come here.”
“Where are you? I’ll come right away.”
“No. It’s dangerous, so I’ll send Ha Seok-jun.”
“All right, understood.”
Ha-yeong told him her location and hung up.
After ending the call with Ha-yeong, Kang-hae and Ha Seok-jun moved Jo Gwang-il and his two thugs, who were still lying unconscious on the floor, into the office.
He then gave Ha Seok-jun Ha-yeong’s location and ordered him to bring her over.
Ha Seok-jun left the illegal gambling house.
Kang-hae used a length of twine from the desk drawer to bind their arms and legs.
By then, Jo Gwang-il, who had remained unconscious until now, was slowly regaining consciousness.
Heavy pain throbbed in his head and shoulders.
With effort, Jo Gwang-il pried open his eyelids.
Then he saw the man who had knocked him out rummaging through a drawer and leafing through the contracts he had drawn up over time.
“How did you know I was from Office 35? Was it the National Intelligence Service? Or MSS? You don’t look Japanese.”
Kang-hae looked at him.
And told him exactly what he wanted to know.
“Ri Ho-cheol.”
The moment he heard the name, Jo Gwang-il’s face stiffened.
Ri Ho-cheol.
The living legend of North Korea’s First Bureau, the Operations Bureau, a man who had even been granted the title of Hero of the Republic by the Supreme Leader himself.
He had infiltrated the South several times and successfully completed his missions.
Afterward, he had been appointed as an instructor for the Reconnaissance General Bureau.
Jo Gwang-il had also learned marksmanship and special combat techniques from him.
But not long after Jo Gwang-il was reassigned to the Fifth Bureau, the foreign intelligence bureau, Ri Ho-cheol defected.
Back in his second year at the Development Group, Kang-hae had also received training from him alongside the others.
He was the owner of the voice Kang-hae had heard in his ear a moment ago while fighting Jo Gwang-il.
“So you came from South Korea, did you.”
“Ri Ho-cheol used to say something. The key to North Korean special combat is catching the other man’s unique rhythm.”
“Don’t you dare bring up that traitor’s name!”
At the mention of Ri Ho-cheol’s name, Jo Gwang-il growled.
Kang-hae thought the growl might have come from envy.
At that moment, the office door opened, and Ha Seok-jun and Seong Ha-yeong came in.
Ha-yeong flinched when she saw the men lying on the floor, but she immediately went to Kang-hae.
There was blood on his face and on his clothes.
Once again, Ha-yeong asked if he was hurt anywhere.
“I’m fine.”
Kang-hae avoided her worried gaze.
Ha-yeong noticed that too.
Just as an inexplicable awkwardness was beginning to settle in the office, Ha Seok-jun spoke up.
“Kang-hae. What do we do now...?”
“First, check this.”
Kang-hae handed over the contracts on the desk and the ledger Jo Gwang-il had written by hand.
Ha Seok-jun immediately examined the contracts and ledger Kang-hae had given him.
Ha-yeong helped him, too.
In the ledger Jo Gwang-il had kept by hand, the money lent out and the money taken back by date were all recorded.
Ha Seok-jun, who had investigated military procurement corruption more than once at the Defense Counterintelligence Command, noticed something odd as he looked over the figures.
The numbers didn’t add up.
It was a textbook case of ledger tampering.
Ha-yeong noticed it as well.
“It’s been altered.”
“You see it that way too, Ha-yeong?”
“Yes.”
Ha Seok-jun and Ha-yeong glanced at each other and nodded.
Meanwhile, Kang-hae had been watching Jo Gwang-il the entire time.
From the moment Ha Seok-jun and Ha-yeong began checking the ledger, fear had crept into Jo Gwang-il’s eyes.
Jo Gwang-il was addicted to liquor and women.
And to pay for them, he had falsified the ledger.
Of course, he understood what that meant.
Embezzling the ruling funds of the Supreme Leader was nothing less than treason.
Even with blood from the Paektu bloodline in his veins, it was not something that could be forgiven.
“You’ve got guts. A soldier from Office 35 skimming off the money he’s supposed to pay to the Party.”
Kang-hae said, looking down at Jo Gwang-il.
“Please. Spare me.”
Jo Gwang-il’s voice trembled with fear.
He hurried on.
“It looks like you people are from high places in the South. Take me with you, too. Please, I’m begging you.”
His voice was desperate.
“This is Macau. China, in other words. If we’re caught helping you, we’ll be dragged straight to prison. Why should we take that risk for you?”
“I’ll do anything. Please, I’m begging you.”
That was the answer Kang-hae had been waiting for.
“I’m looking for someone. His name is Baek Kang. He’s Korean-Chinese. Late twenties to early thirties. A hacker, or something along those lines. Can you find him?”
“I’ll look for him.”
“Four days.”
“That’s too tight.”
“Three days.”
“Hey, now—”
“Two days.”
“All right. Four days. I’ll find him within four days. I swear I will.”
Kang-hae gathered up the ledger and contracts from the desk.
Then he shook them in the air and said, “If you try anything stupid, I’ll send these ledgers and contracts, which you wrote yourself, to the North Korean embassy in Beijing. You know what that means, don’t you?”
He knew all too well.
The moment it became known that Jo Gwang-il had dipped into the ruling funds, the Party would issue a Standing Order.
The same kind of order that had been handed down for the half-brother of the Supreme Leader who was assassinated in Malaysia.
It would remain in force until the highest authority canceled it.
No one knew how long it would take, but they would surely come for him.
Even if he ran to the furthest reaches of Africa.
Jo Gwang-il nodded.
Kang-hae untied the cords binding his arms and legs.
Then he left the illegal gambling house with Seong Ha-yeong and Ha Seok-jun.
Once they were gone, Jo Gwang-il felt the pain radiating through his whole body.
Blood was still flowing from his shoulder blade.
But he didn’t have time to go to a hospital.
Time was running out.
He had to find the man named Baek Kang right now.
That was the only way to survive.