Seong Ha-yeong (1)
Plop—
Na Kang-hae and Cho Gwang-il stood on the deck and threw the corpses into the sea.
They had to get rid of the bodies before the bulk carrier arrived.
After the last corpse had been heaved overboard, Cho Gwang-il looked at Kang-hae and said, “I’m truly grateful. I never thought you’d really come. I was sure I was going to die without even being able to move……”
Relief at being alive and gratitude toward Kang-hae were plain on Cho Gwang-il’s face.
But it wouldn’t last long.
His family would surely meet a brutal death in Pyongyang.
Cho Gwang-il knew that better than anyone.
But for now, he didn’t seem to be thinking about it.
No—perhaps he was deliberately refusing to think about it.
Kang-hae silently patted him on the shoulder.
Then he headed into the cabin where Baek Kang was waiting.
He had to tell him what would happen next, too.
Baek Kang was still sitting rigidly on the bed, a frightened expression frozen on his face.
Even after Kang-hae came in, he didn’t move.
“A ship will be arriving soon. We’ll board it and enter South Korea.”
“……”
Even after hearing Kang-hae’s words, Baek Kang gave no particular reaction.
That was a relief.
If he’d said he didn’t want to go to South Korea, things could have become troublesome.
“Rest for now.”
Kang-hae had no real interest in Baek Kang.
He knew only that the man was a North Korean cryptocurrency developer, but how that currency had been made or how it was used was none of his concern.
As far as Kang-hae was concerned, his mission was simply to bring Baek Kang to South Korea.
So he was about to leave the cabin again.
But Baek Kang called out to him.
“Excuse me.”
“……”
“What’s your name?”
“Why are you asking?”
“If I offended you, I apologize.”
“No, I wasn’t offended. I was just curious why you wanted to know.”
“You reminded me of someone I know.”
“I can’t tell you for security reasons.”
Kang-hae’s affiliation was not the National Security Office but the Information Command.
An Information Command operative couldn’t carelessly reveal his identity to someone of uncertain background.
After saying that, Kang-hae left the cabin.
Then he stood on the deck and let the sea wind wash over him.
The sharp scent of salt reached the tip of his nose.
The things he had gone through in Hong Kong and Macau flashed before him like fragments of film, one after another.
And now, more than anything, he wanted to go home to South Korea.
* * *
Seong Ha-yeong woke before dawn, and as soon as she was done showering, she skipped breakfast and drove to Pyeongtaek Port.
“What brings you here?” asked a staff member at the Pyeongtaek Port branch office, looking at her as she arrived so early in the morning.
“I’m Seong Ha-yeong from the National Security Office support team. We spoke on the phone yesterday.”
“Ah, yes. Hello.”
“Hello.”
“But the Ilseong Shipping bulk carrier isn’t due until this afternoon…… you’re already here?”
“Yes.”
At the staff member’s words, Ha-yeong felt inexplicably embarrassed.
He found a place for her to wait in one corner of the office.
The crew aboard the River Dragon cargo ship would be handed over to the maritime police.
Cho Gwang-il and Baek Kang would be transferred to the National Intelligence Service.
And the people in charge of those two agencies didn’t show up until after lunchtime.
Time moved only reluctantly.
Several times, Ha-yeong had to fight the urge to ask the port staff when they would arrive.
After two in the afternoon, a staff member finally let her know the ship had arrived.
“The bulk carrier has just docked.”
“……!”
“It’ll still take a while before it gets here.”
“How long?”
Even Ha-yeong couldn’t hold back then.
“After the ship berths at the pier, disembarks the passengers, and comes here for a quick inspection…… maybe thirty minutes?”
Ha-yeong waited thirty minutes that felt like three days.
And then she finally saw Kang-hae.
In the space of a few days, he had grown gaunt, and a beard had come in along his jaw.
“You’ve had a rough time.”
“Yes.”
“……”
The two of them looked at each other in silence for a brief moment.
“Did you eat?”
“I ate on the ship. Did you, Ha-yeong?”
“Yes. I ate too.”
It was a lie.
Ha-yeong had waited for Kang-hae without even eating lunch.
“Then shall we go?”
“Yes.”
The two of them headed to the parking lot.
Ha-yeong got into the driver’s seat, and Kang-hae into the passenger seat.
They said nothing until the car had left Pyeongtaek.
An awkward silence hung in the car.
Riiing—
As the car passed through Hwaseong, Ha-yeong’s phone rang.
It was Ha Seok-jun calling.
Ha-yeong answered.
[Ha-yeong, did Kang-hae arrive?]
Ha Seok-jun’s voice boomed through the car.
“Yes, he’s with me now.”
[Oh! Then Kang-hae’s listening too, right?]
“Yes.”
[Hey, Na Kang-hae! Do you know how worried I was, you punk?!]
There was pure delight in Ha Seok-jun’s voice.
Ha-yeong smiled faintly.
And Kang-hae thought about where it had all gone wrong.
He sincerely hoped Ha Seok-jun would stop feeling that bizarre sense of intimacy with him.
Hoo…… how on earth did it end up like this……
Ha Seok-jun’s voice continued from the speaker.
[You idiot, if it hadn’t been for Ha-yeong, you’d have been dragged off to China, not Pyeongtaek.]
“……”
[The bulk carrier you came in on belongs to Ilseong Shipping. It was founded by Ha-yeong’s grandfather.]
“Sir, Major!”
Ha-yeong hurriedly tried to cut him off.
But Ha Seok-jun kept going.
[Ha-yeong, was that something you arranged? That Ilseong Shipping vessel waiting near the cargo ship?]
“I’m hanging up.”
After saying that, Ha-yeong ended the call.
Kang-hae looked at her.
Her ears were turning red.
Like someone who’d been caught keeping a secret.
“Is it true?”
“Is what?”
“What he just said.”
“No!”
Ha-yeong raised her voice without meaning to.
And Kang-hae understood that she had helped him.
“Thank you for helping me.”
“I said I didn’t!”
“What didn’t you?”
“That…… thing……”
“So you did help me.”
“……”
It wasn’t something she had done just to hear thanks, but now that he’d said it, she did feel a little pleased.
“By the way, Ha-yeong.”
“Yes?”
“So you’re, what, a third-generation chaebol?”
Even while driving, Ha-yeong turned her head to look at him.
“You didn’t know……?”
“No.”
Kang-hae’s face didn’t look like one capable of lying.
Ha-yeong was startled.
In her life, she had never once said with her own mouth that she was from a chaebol family.
But even without saying it, everyone found out anyway.
And Ha-yeong had naturally assumed Kang-hae knew it too.
“Well, it’s not like I’m proud of it or anything. It’s just how I was born.”
“……”
“My father passed away a few years ago, and my mother is in the United States.”
“I see.”
“What about your family, Kang-hae?”
“My father and mother are both dead.”
“Ah…… I’m sorry……”
“It’s fine.”
Ha-yeong regretted bringing it up.
Feeling awkward, she glanced at him sideways.
But Kang-hae had turned his head and was looking out the window.
All she could see was the back of him.
Once again, an awkward silence settled in the car.
After a long while, Kang-hae broke it.
“Ha-yeong.”
“Yes?”
“Can you reach Miki Ho?”
“Yes.”
“Then what about the phone I left with you?”
He meant Byeon Dong-jin’s phone.
After killing Byeon Dong-jin in Macau, Kang-hae had left the man’s phone with Miki Ho so he could trace the people who had exchanged contact information with him.
“Oh, right. I got a call about that too. They said it would take a few days.”
“Did you report that phone to the Director as well?”
“No, not yet.”
“Would it be all right if I reported it to him myself?”
“Why……?”
“Please.”
“All right.”
“Thank you.”
Ha-yeong found Kang-hae’s request a little strange, but she didn’t think much of it.
One hour later.
After arriving at the National Security Office, Kang-hae went straight to the Director’s office and knocked on the door.
Knock, knock—
“Come in.”
As soon as he heard Ko Jeong-un’s voice, Kang-hae opened the door.
Then he approached the man seated at the desk and saluted.
“You’ve worked hard.”
“Not at all.”
“I’ve already been briefed on what happened. Take some leave this week.”
“I’m fine.”
“I’ve already signed off on it. You don’t need to come in this week.”
“Thank you.”
Even after saying that, Kang-hae did not leave the room.
Ko Jeong-un noticed that Kang-hae had something else to say.
“Go ahead.”
“Have you found the traitor who ordered the reconnaissance unit to move at the MDL?”
“Not yet.”
“There was a killer targeting me in Macau.”
“I know. I also know you dealt with him personally.”
“The person who hired him may be the traitor.”
“That’s what I think too.”
“If we find out who it is, may I handle him myself?”
That was why he had asked Ha-yeong in the car.
He wanted her not to tell Ko Jeong-un that he had left Byeon Dong-jin’s phone with Miki Ho.
If Ko Jeong-un refused his request, Kang-hae would not tell him about it.
“And if I say no?”
“……”
“Let’s decide that after we find out who it is.”
“Understood.”
Kang-hae saluted again and left the Director’s office.
Then he thought to himself that he’d done well not to mention the phone he’d left with Miki Ho.
He had no intention of letting the traitor live in peace, whoever it was.
Even if Ko Jeong-un opposed it, he would kill him.
In Kang-hae’s head, as if a switch had been thrown, his thoughts once again filled with the traitor.
He wanted to find that traitor and kill him as soon as possible.
* * *
In 1953, Seong Man-sik founded a company called Ilseong Chemical in Daegu.
Driven by a singular, stubborn resolve, Seong Man-sik succeeded in domesticating explosives just five years after founding the company.
From there, he continued to expand the business with extraordinary intelligence and remarkable acumen.
He also branched into construction and defense.
Thanks to the special boom that began in the 1970s, his business grew by the day, but one day, just days before turning sixty, he died of a heart attack.
Afterward, his eldest son, Seong Hun, inherited the group.
He was thirty years old then.
People around him worried that a man barely thirty would ruin his father’s company, but he had inherited not only his father’s brilliant mind, but also his own ambition.
An ambition to turn Ilseong Group into one of the country’s leading conglomerates.
Even while he spent more than ten years locked in inheritance battles with his older sister and younger brother, he steadily built Ilseong Group up.
He reached into construction, shipping, refining, and finance as well.
In the end, he dragged Ilseong Group, once only a fringe chaebol, into the ranks of the nation’s top ten companies.
And even now, with eighty looming on the horizon, he still led Ilseong Group.
Meanwhile, Seong Ha-yeong, Seong Hun’s eldest granddaughter, was on her way to the home where Seong Hun lived, fulfilling the price of a favor she had asked for days earlier.
Seong Hun’s house in Seongbuk-dong was surrounded by palace-like walls and straight rows of pine trees.
Ha-yeong stood at the gate and let out a deep breath.
“Hoo.”
The moment she pressed the doorbell, a man in a suit came out.
“Everyone is waiting inside?”
Ha-yeong followed him in silence.
As soon as she stepped through the gate, a broad yard covered in green grass came into view.
It was where she had played as a child.
She passed through that place filled with childhood memories.
“It’s been a long time.”
Seong Hun said as he looked at his granddaughter, who had come home for the first time in years.
Though he was nearly eighty, his back was still straight.
And the gaze that seemed able to see straight through a person was unchanged.
Behind Seong Hun stood his siblings, their wives, and their children.
They all wore smiles that were obviously forced.
“I hope you’ve all been well.”
Ha-yeong said, looking at them.
She did not bow her head.
On purpose.