The Traitor, Part 2
“How dare an Intelligence Command operative tail the Director of the National Intelligence Service?!”
Oh Ji-hoon barked at Kang-hae.
For all the tremor in his gut, he still managed to sound imposing.
Ji-hoon studied Kang-hae’s face.
But he couldn’t read a thing from it.
Then he saw something flying toward his own face.
Thwack—
It was Kang-hae’s fist.
No, precisely, it was the back of his hand.
Kang-hae’s clenched hand drove the back of his knuckles into Ji-hoon’s nose bridge, and—
“Aaagh—!”
The instant Ji-hoon groaned,
trickle—
red blood spilled from his nose.
Ji-hoon clutched at it with both hands.
A hot, stinging pain radiated through his eyes and nose.
But even more shocking than the pain was Kang-hae’s behavior.
He had never imagined that a Grade 8 civil servant would actually throw a punch at him, the Director of the National Intelligence Service.
More than anything, this was the first act of physical violence Ji-hoon had suffered since becoming an adult.
“Don’t act like you’re made of glass.”
Kang-hae glared at him.
If he’d swung with a real fist instead of the back of his hand, Ji-hoon’s nose and front teeth would have been shattered.
“You think you’ll get away with this?” Ji-hoon said, still holding his nose.
“You’re saying what I was about to say.”
“…….”
“I could kill you right now.”
Ji-hoon knew Kang-hae meant it.
And Kang-hae really did want to kill him on the spot, just as he’d said.
But there were still a few things he needed to confirm first.
“And you think you can handle what comes after if you kill me?”
“It would be a nuisance.”
“A nuisance…? Ha ha ha ha.”
Ji-hoon burst out laughing, so incredulous it bordered on contempt.
After laughing for a long while, he spoke again.
“No matter how well you stage it as an accident, we’ll find you in the end.”
“We…? Are you talking about the National Intelligence Service?”
“That’s right. If you kill me here, our operatives will find you and kill you for sure.”
“Will they, now.”
“What…?”
“Do National Intelligence Service employees think of you as one of them?”
“…….”
Ji-hoon fell silent.
As Kang-hae said, he wasn’t sure the NIS personnel would even see him as one of their own.
Inwardly, Ji-hoon thought they wouldn’t.
He had spent most of his public service career in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
He passed the foreign service exam at twenty-nine and started as a Grade 5 official, later serving as Director-General for North American Affairs, First Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, and First Deputy Director of the National Security Office.
After Jin-cheol Kim took office, he became the first Director of the National Intelligence Service under the new administration.
Once he was appointed director, Ji-hoon carried out the president’s orders and led the NIS reforms.
He dismantled the illegally operated online comment brigade.
He completed the transfer of counterintelligence investigative authority to the National Police Agency.
He slashed the NIS special operations budget in half on presidential orders.
Of course, it had all been ordered by Jin-cheol Kim.
But NIS employees resented Ji-hoon all the more because he was the one who faithfully carried out the president’s directives.
There had naturally been pushback inside the agency too,
and Ji-hoon had purged every last person who resisted him.
He knew his reputation inside the NIS was growing worse by the day, but he didn’t care.
What mattered to Ji-hoon was the next nomination.
And besides, he wasn’t a National Intelligence Service man anyway—he was, to the marrow of his bones, a Foreign Ministry man.
“If you turn back now, I’ll let today’s incident go.”
At last, Ji-hoon lowered his tail.
Without a word, Kang-hae drew the knife from his waist.
Then he stabbed it between Ji-hoon’s legs.
Shhk—
Ji-hoon had expected the blade to go into his thigh, and a low scream tore out of him.
Moments later, the space between his legs grew warm and wet.
“There’s only one way you get to live.”
Gulp.
Ji-hoon swallowed hard.
He sent Kang-hae a look that asked what it was.
“Why did you try to kill me?”
“If I tell you, will you really spare me……?”
“Answer me.”
“Yoo Jeong-hun… the Presidential Chief of Staff ordered it.”
“Why?”
“Because he feared a civil war would break out if Operation Storm succeeded.”
“So he told the North Korean Army we were coming?”
“Jeong-hun Yoo contacted them himself. I only connected the channel.”
“Then why try to kill me in Macau too? The operation had already failed, and we’d even held talks at Panmunjom.”
“You’re the only proof Operation Storm ever happened. He was worried you might start talking about it someday. He was just being careful, even about a tiny spark.”
“A tiny spark, huh… So all of this was for peace between North and South?”
Ji-hoon nodded violently.
“I suppose so.”
“Hah……”
A sigh of relief slipped from Ji-hoon’s lips.
“But my comrades all died.”
“Hey……! You just said you’d spare me.”
“When did I say that?”
Kang-hae pulled the knife from between Ji-hoon’s legs.
Then he leveled it at Ji-hoon’s throat and said, “Start the engine.”
Ji-hoon obeyed and turned the engine on.
“Step on the gas.”
“Hey…….”
Without a word, Kang-hae tightened his grip on the knife,
and Ji-hoon had no choice but to press the accelerator.
The car lurched forward.
A moment later, the sea came into view.
If they kept going, the car would smash straight into the breakwater.
He’d have to lift his foot from the gas and hit the brakes.
But then the knife at his throat would surely cut into his carotid artery.
While Ji-hoon hesitated, unable to decide what to do, the car drew closer and closer to the water.
Ten meters.
Eight meters.
Six meters.
Five meters.
Four meters.
Three meters.
Then the passenger door flew open, and Kang-hae hurled himself out.
Ji-hoon slammed on the brakes a beat later, but it was already too late.
The car veered off the road and slammed into the breakwater.
Oh Ji-hoon died right there.
* * *
Presidential office, executive suite.
President Jin-cheol Kim couldn’t believe it.
So he stared at Ko Jeong-un standing across from him and asked again, “Is it true?”
“It is.”
Ko Jeong-un had received a call from Kang-hae not long before,
and immediately afterward he had gone to see Jin-cheol Kim and told him that the one who had leaked Operation Storm to the North was Yoo Jeong-hun.
Jin-cheol Kim pressed a hand to his forehead.
He had known Jeong-hun Yoo for twenty years.
To think that such a man would betray him—no, hand over state secrets to North Korea.
“What will you do?”
“For now……”
Jin-cheol Kim trailed off.
He didn’t even know where to begin.
“What do you think should be done, Director?”
It was the voice of someone asking for help.
“No one can be exempt. He has violated the Criminal Act, the National Security Act, and the Military Secrets Protection Act.”
Jin-cheol Kim knew that much himself.
He knew that if all the charges were proven true, the sentence would be death, life imprisonment, or at least ten years in prison.
“I need some time to think.”
“I understand you’re worried about approval ratings.”
“…….”
“But this isn’t merely a political matter. It’s a violation of the nation’s fundamental order. You have to deal with it decisively.”
“…….”
“If Your Excellency wants it buried, I’ll uncover every last detail to the end.”
“Understood. Leave for now.”
Ko Jeong-un bowed respectfully and left the office.
Once he was gone, Jin-cheol Kim called in the aide waiting outside and summoned Yoo Jeong-hun.
A little later, Jeong-hun Yoo appeared.
“I heard you wanted to see me.”
“Sit.”
“I’m fine, Your Excellency.”
“Jeong-hun.”
“……?”
Jin-cheol Kim and Jeong-hun Yoo had been the same age and friends for twenty years, but after Jin-cheol became president, the two of them no longer spoke casually even in private.
“The first time we met was in Representative Park Young-deuk’s office, wasn’t it.”
“Why bring that up all of a sudden, Your Excellency?”
Twenty years ago, both men had entered politics as aides to Representative Park Young-deuk.
When Park Young-deuk announced his retirement from politics after serving as Speaker of the National Assembly, the party decided that one of his aides would inherit his district.
That was how things worked in those days.
Everyone assumed Jeong-hun Yoo, a Seoul National University political science graduate, would take the seat.
But Yoo had ceded it to Jin-cheol Kim.
And for the next twenty years, Yoo lived as Jin-cheol Kim’s shadow.
“Jeong-hun. Back then everyone said it should be you. Why did you give it up for me?”
“…….”
“If you hadn’t given it to me then, you might have become president yourself.”
“Is something wrong?”
“I was just briefed on this by the National Security Office Director.”
“…….”
“Why did you do it? At the very least, you should have consulted me. You should have said something!”
There was more sorrow than anger in Jin-cheol Kim’s voice.
“If this gets out, approval ratings will fall even further, and I may have to resign the presidency.”
“…….”
“Still, I can’t cover it up. I’ll give you time. Clean it up.”
It was an order to step down on his own.
And an order to go to prison.
“I’ll take my leave.”
Jeong-hun Yoo offered no excuses, no protest.
He simply bowed his head to Jin-cheol Kim and left the office.
Jin-cheol Kim called in the new chief presidential secretary to discuss legal procedures, then stopped himself.
He needed a day or two, at least, to sort out his thoughts—no, his feelings.
* * *
The next dawn, every news outlet in the country broke out emergency coverage.
— Were the allegations about President Jin-cheol Kim’s slush fund true?
— The president’s brother-in-law’s paper company exposed as a shell operation
— The long-standing affair between Jin-cheol Kim and big business, dating back to his days as Seoul mayor
Not just the broadcasts, but internet communities and real-time search rankings were all flooded with Jin-cheol Kim slush fund coverage.
It was an old allegation, one raised when Jin-cheol Kim had been a presidential candidate.
There had once been suspicions that his brother-in-law, who ran a mid-sized construction firm, had won several contracts from the city of Seoul while Jin-cheol Kim was mayor.
There were also accusations that money had been funneled to him through a paper company from other businesses.
All of it was true.
But as soon as Kim was elected, he buried the case.
The prosecutor’s office had led the charge first.
They destroyed the evidence and reduced the matter to the private corruption of one accounting clerk at the construction company.
And there were only three people who knew the truth.
President Jin-cheol Kim.
Presidential Chief of Staff Yoo Jeong-hun.
And Lee Sang-woo, then chief prosecutor of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office.
Kim knew it had been Yoo Jeong-hun who had leaked the material to the press.
As soon as he arrived at the presidential office, Kim headed not for his own suite but for the Chief of Staff’s office.
Bang—
He yanked the door open roughly,
and saw Yoo Jeong-hun in a meeting with the senior presidential secretaries.
Everyone rose to greet him.
“Welcome, sir. We were just drawing up countermeasures, Your Excellency.”
Yoo Jeong-hun said, looking at Jin-cheol Kim.
“Everyone out, except the Director.”
Kim spoke in a voice thick with fury,
and everyone except Yoo Jeong-hun filed out.
“Please, have a seat.”
Yoo Jeong-hun said to Kim.
“No, you—how dare you… how could you do this to me….”
Kim’s rage made his voice shake.
“You asked me something yesterday.”
“What?”
“Why I gave up the seat to you twenty years ago.”
“……?”
“I never gave up anything for you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I already knew then. People would like you more than they’d ever like me—the elite. You, always struggling on the fringes of elite society. So I made you—made a man from a provincial university who only ever passed the first round of the bar exam… I made you president!”
“So I was your puppet…? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Among the countless problems plaguing the Republic of Korea, is there even one you can solve? You, who get worked up over a few dead soldiers and approve a military operation that could start a war?!”
“…….”
“Don’t fool yourself, Jin-cheol Kim. I made you president, and I created every policy you ever announced out of your own mouth. Not you—I’m the one steering this country. So in the end, we have no choice but to go down together.”
Jin-cheol Kim stared at Yoo Jeong-hun.
Jeong-hun’s gaze didn’t waver.
And Kim was seized by the sensation that he was looking at a terrorist brimming with conviction.
A terrorist wearing a bomb vest all over his body,
someone threatening to press the button if Kim didn’t obey him.
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