The Giant's Absence
“A very peculiar combination.” Yoo Jae-won couldn’t help but voice his surprise. The assortment made no sense at all.
He picked up the Piggy Bank Safe business card first, the most out-of-place item among them. On the back was an address pointing to a specific building in an alley off Jongno’s jewelry district. If he had an app like KakaoMap, he could have simply punched in the address and checked the route, but without any digital maps available, he had no choice but to estimate the location roughly. Oddly enough, someone had scribbled the number 206 on it in ballpoint pen.
The seal was unusual too. Normally, the stamping surface of a seal bore a name, since seals served as signatures. This old seal, however, had no name. Instead, four digits were engraved with remarkable precision: 6735. No matter how he tried combining it with his own birthday or Jeon Myeong-heon’s various personal details, the number yielded no obvious meaning.
“There must be something in the notebook.”
Finally, Yoo Jae-won picked up the notebook. It was palm-sized, small enough to fit in a shirt pocket, and slightly thick. The old Mirae Construction logo was printed on it—the version used before the CI change—which suggested the notebook was at least fourteen years old. He opened it to the first page.
“Ah.”
One glance at the first page told him roughly what it contained. To confirm his suspicion, he flipped through the rest of the pages quickly.
“Just as I thought.”
The notebook was a ledger. It listed the names of former ministers and vice-ministers, prosecutors and judges, broadcasters, prominent professors, and veteran National Assembly members who held sway in Yeouido. The later pages, meticulously maintained, contained many newcomers, while the earlier pages featured older figures. Some names had lines drawn through them—those individuals were deceased. Dates and numbers appeared beside the names, and a few bore special symbols.
“These are the amounts and dates of the bribes paid. The ones with special symbols must have been especially important.”
It seemed the notebook was Jeon Myeong-heon’s personal roster of people he had managed through bribes. Then Yoo Jae-won noticed something else. Near the very end, the pages were filled exclusively with National Assembly members. Entire pages had been set aside for Tongil National Party lawmakers, Democratic Party lawmakers, and opposition party lawmakers, each in separate categories. The numbers attached to these names differed from the earlier entries. The amounts beside the first names were in the hundreds, the prosecutors in the middle were in the thousands, but the lawmakers at the end were numbered from one to ten.
After a moment’s thought, the answer became clear.
“The earlier figures are in ten-thousand-won units, while the lawmakers are in hundred-million-won units.”
The first entries dated back at least fifteen years. A few hundred thousand won would have been a substantial sum then. Over time, inflation had apparently increased the size of the bribes.
“Hmm.”
This notebook was undeniably a bomb capable of shaking the entire Republic of Korea. No matter how one dressed it up as “rice-cake money,” a bribe was still a bribe. The fact that even names of people who seemed unlikely to accept bribes appeared in it meant that its public disclosure would cause an enormous uproar.
“That can’t be what Grandfather meant by his words.”
Jeon Myeong-heon had told him to seize whatever he could grasp. This ledger represented the way the old man had clutched at social power. It was the real hidden reason why the Tongil National Party—and even the coalition Democratic Party—had moved in perfect unison at a single word from him.
“I still don’t know what the business card and seal are for.”
Yoo Jae-won set the notebook down and fell into thought again. Searching the internet yielded nothing useful. In the twenty-first century, loan advertisements sometimes blanketed the web, but that wasn’t the case now. A few results appeared for “Piggy Bank Safe,” yet the addresses were different. With no answer forthcoming, he opened ID Talk and summoned the information team leader—not Levin Willis in the United States, but An Jong-cheol of the Korean corporation.
“Ah, this is a private safe.”
An Jong-cheol, who had rushed straight to the house in Deokjin-ri, recognized the card at once. Having moved through various underground circles before being recruited by Yoo Jae-won, he looked at it with a familiar glint in his eyes.
“A private safe? Like a bank that holds money?”
“Not just money. They store everything from valuables to miscellaneous items. They even keep people.”
An Jong-cheol’s words brought an image to Yoo Jae-won’s mind. There was a film that had not yet been released: Oldboy, directed by the world-renowned Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook and based on a Japanese manga. It would premiere in 2003, so he would have to wait another four years to see it. The central device in Oldboy was a private prison. The protagonist is suddenly released after more than ten years of unexplained captivity in one. Yoo Jae-won now realized that such private prisons actually existed as a service.
Naturally, a flood of curiosity followed.
“Can we go see it right now?”
“It operates twenty-four hours, so there’s no problem.”
“Then let’s go immediately!”
With An Jong-cheol’s confirmation, Yoo Jae-won’s afternoon schedule was set.
“However, there may be an issue with your security if we go there, Chairman.”
“What? Why?”
The reason was simple: at least ten people normally accompanied Yoo Jae-won whenever he moved. Kim Dae-seok, who always followed him, was a given, and eight additional bodyguards had been assigned. If such a large group entered the neighborhood at once, security would tighten and business would halt. The maximum number of people allowed to enter simultaneously was two.
Yoo Jae-won hesitated at An Jong-cheol’s explanation.
“Absolutely not.”
Kim Dae-seok, who had been listening quietly from behind, cut in sharply.
“What do you mean?”
“I will not allow you to go without bodyguards.”
Typical Kim Dae-seok. Having worked with Yoo Jae-won for over ten years, he could now read his employer’s thoughts from a single expression. Indeed, Yoo Jae-won had been wondering whether going with just the two of them might be acceptable, given An Jong-cheol’s warning about the difficulty of bringing bodyguards.
“These are Grandfather’s final words and belongings. If it were truly dangerous, he wouldn’t have left them there in the first place.”
Yoo Jae-won knew better than anyone that safety came first. How many people ever received a second chance at life? Moreover, the master plan he had prepared across two lifetimes was succeeding at over 120 percent of expectations. The only regret was that he had never imagined Jeon Myeong-heon would leave the world so soon.
“Well, that is…”
Even Kim Dae-seok faltered at the mention of Jeon Myeong-heon’s name.
“Then let’s do this. Wait nearby. If anything happens inside, I’ll signal you with the Tiffany phone.”
“There could be signal jamming.”
Kim Dae-seok objected, but his argument lacked conviction. This wasn’t a war, and it was unlikely that gangsters running a private safe would employ signal jamming.
“Chief of Staff, that won’t happen. I visited once a few years ago on an errand, and I was able to use a phone inside.”
An Jong-cheol added his support.
“Then let’s go right away.”
With that, Yoo Jae-won’s next schedule was confirmed.
One and a half hours after departing the house in Deokjin-ri, Yoo Jae-won and An Jong-cheol entered the alley behind Jongno’s jewelry district. As agreed, the bodyguards and Kim Dae-seok waited at the closest possible distance to the Piggy Bank Safe while Yoo Jae-won and An Jong-cheol approached the building.
It looked shabby—a three-story structure with tiled exterior walls that appeared to date from the 1970s. The sign on the first floor read “Jewelry Workshop,” giving the impression of a small atelier that supplied gold rings and gold toads to the jewelry district.
Inside, the workshop was exactly as advertised. Anyone arriving with only the business card might have suspected they had taken a wrong turn.
“Third floor.”
Fortunately, An Jong-cheol knew the way.
“How may I help you?”
The moment they reached the third floor, a man in a tracksuit and slippers blocked their path and asked their business. He was large, but his bulk looked artificially inflated and lacked any real presence or intimidation.
An Jong-cheol gave Yoo Jae-won a signal. Following the instructions he had received beforehand, Yoo Jae-won showed the seal.
“Here to retrieve money, I see.”
The man in the tracksuit opened the door without even examining the seal closely. Stepping inside, they found a small office where several men were eating jajangmyeon while watching a muted television. They looked exactly like the sort of people one would call “hyung-nim.”
“How may I help you?”
The same question again. Yoo Jae-won showed the seal once more. The men nodded and asked if he had come to retrieve money, then brought out a ledger and an ink pad. They instructed him to stamp the ledger with the seal. Yoo Jae-won complied without protest.
“6735?”
After checking the stamped number, one of them opened a cabinet. Inside were rows upon rows of keys, neatly organized by number. The key for 6735 was located immediately. The man handed it over, then tilted his head curiously.
“Hmm? Didn’t you bring a bag?”
Apparently, previous visitors had always arrived with bags. Yoo Jae-won was about to answer when An Jong-cheol spoke first.
“Isn’t it rude to inquire about a customer’s business?”
A brief staring contest ensued between An Jong-cheol and the large man.
“Ah, my mistake. Everyone who comes here to retrieve money usually brings a bag. You two are the first to arrive empty-handed, so it seemed unusual.”
The man readily admitted his error. After An Jong-cheol’s warning, he showed no further interest, paying no attention to Yoo Jae-won’s masked and capped appearance. As long as the seal was authentic, it seemed the operators did not care who accessed the safes.
“Take the elevator down. When you’re finished, ring the bell. Be sure to return the key.”
The man gave brief instructions along with the key and pointed with his chin toward the elevator. An actual elevator had been installed inside the office. The only floor buttons were for the basement and the third floor. That meant the safes were underground, and anyone visiting them had to pass through this office.
The security arrangement was more sophisticated than expected.
When the elevator doors opened in the basement, Yoo Jae-won’s jaw dropped. A long corridor stretched ahead, lined on both sides with identical doors spaced at regular intervals. If each door represented one safe, there were at least a hundred safes inside.
He had assumed he only needed to find the number 6735, but he immediately encountered a problem. Every door bore a number, yet none displayed 6735. All the numbers were three digits long.
After a brief moment of confusion, the answer presented itself. The number 206 had been written on the Piggy Bank Safe business card. The men upstairs could match the seal to the keyholder, but only the user knew which safe the key actually opened.
“It looked run-down from the outside, but their security awareness is thorough.”
The realization sharpened Yoo Jae-won’s own sense of caution. If even a private safe operated with such strict security, he had clearly let his guard down slightly because of recent matters involving his grandfather.
Finding safe 206 proved easy. When he inserted the key into the thick iron door and turned it, a heavy metallic click echoed as the lock disengaged. The heavy door swung open smoothly. The corridor lighting was dim, and the safe itself had no light on, so the interior remained completely dark. An Jong-cheol stepped in first to find the light switch. The moment the lights came on, a gasp escaped Yoo Jae-won’s lips.
No one could have remained silent at the sight of cash bundles stacked on pallets like a currency printing plant’s shipping bay.