Wolf Among the Sheep (9)
Shin Hee-soo stared at Ju Kang-rim in disbelief at his words.
"You think you can track them just from the account numbers? Of course the deposits come through dummy accounts. They go through all sorts of shell companies and tax havens!"
"That's for me to handle."
"No, forget it. What's the point of me even telling you."
Whether Ju Kang-rim fucked up or failed, it wasn't her problem. She opened the bank account as ordered and showed him the deposit history.
Ju Kang-rim examined the card usage and deposit records in detail.
"What's this? Eighty thousand won at 'Malang Sweet Cake House'? How much snacking do you do? Cat food for a hundred forty thousand, cat toys for two hundred sixty thousand? Monthly donation of two hundred thousand to the stray cat shelter? That's not a donation, is it? It's a tax haven, right?"
"Hey! Don't look so closely! Cats get bored without new toys!"
Ju Kang-rim ignored her and scanned through it all. His eyes stopped at one spot.
A week ago, four million won had been deposited into her account from a rural bank. He checked the bank name and closed the phone.
'This is where it starts.'
Immortals couldn't just magic gold bars out of thin air to their underlings with some mystical power. They had to use human systems and human currency to make them useful. Naturally, secret organizations funding assassins would twist the money trail every which way.
But Ju Kang-rim was confident he could trace it simply. After all, back when he was Gerald's adjutant, budget execution had been one of his main duties.
Morning.
Lee Tae-hu and the other hunters, who had slept in because there were no night watchmen, came out in a line. They looked up at the sky with bewildered expressions.
A clear blue sky shone down on them. The Gate had closed.
Moreover, four of them were missing: Ju Kang-rim, Godajok, and two hunters.
They searched the surroundings for the vanished members and found Ju Kang-rim in a nearby playground, a bit away.
"Mr. Ju Kang-rim? What the hell is... that?"
Ju Kang-rim sat next to the abomination's corpse, tapping at his Biman.
As Lee Tae-hu approached the corpse, Ju Kang-rim spoke up.
"Touch it carelessly and your hand'll melt."
He nodded toward the body sprawled on the ground. Lee Tae-hu jumped back in shock at the sight of the melted, clumped corpse.
Seeing their belongings, Lee Tae-hu realized they were Godajok's comrades.
"G-Godajok's crew, right? What happened?"
"Looks like they got dragged off during night watch, same as the apartment residents who showed up late. Unfortunately, I only noticed when I woke up this morning."
Ju Kang-rim pointed to the battle traces around them.
"They probably fought like hell to protect us while we slept."
"Ah, could those noises we heard during the night have been...?"
"You heard them, huh."
"They came from pretty far away, no one came to wake us, and inside a Gate, you hear all sorts of weird shit anyway, so we ignored it."
Godajok and the hunters had dragged him out quite a distance to persuade or assassinate him. It was natural the sleeping hunters hadn't heard the fight. Plus, in a Gate, you had to tune out a lot to get proper rest.
"But Godajok's not here. Don't tell me..."
"Probably melted completely. Or ran off."
Ju Kang-rim said it with deep regret. The two scenarios would paint very different reputations, but Lee Tae-hu had no way to tell.
Lee Tae-hu looked shocked at the three casualties overnight. But at least Ju Kang-rim had taken down the abomination—that was some good news.
"That thing killed Godajok's crew, right?"
"Yeah. I just finished it off. Got lucky."
Ju Kang-rim said it casually, but Lee Tae-hu wasn't an idiot. Some wounds on the abomination looked like Godajok's work, but most of the fatal ones were Ju Kang-rim's.
"Mr. Ju Kang-rim, your awakening ability is..."
"D-rank."
Ju Kang-rim cut him off, as if to say that's all you need to know. He had no desire to inflate his rank. Higher ranks just drew eyes.
"Good thing this seems to be the Gate core. The Gate closed overnight."
Lee Tae-hu looked stunned, while the other hunters beamed at each other. Just a simple Gate core recon, and they'd closed it too? Fat extra rewards awaited.
Lee Tae-hu was aware they'd done jack shit this mission—Ju Kang-rim had handled most of it. If he claimed his full share, they'd get scraps.
But Lee Tae-hu knew gratitude.
"Thank you. We'll split the reward as you want."
"Nah. Just divide my share by headcount. Give the dead their portions, and if no kin, send to refugee welfare."
"You sure?"
"I've got plenty already."
Ju Kang-rim shook Godajok's phone. It held the info on Clint's secret accounts he'd tracked all night.
"I tracked Clint's funds—or Gerald's organization, really, but anyway, their money line."
"What are you talking about all of a sudden?"
Back at the Samdo Renaissance Hotel, Ju Kang-rim reported to Yoo Wol-ryeong right away. Pacing the room nonstop, he continued.
"The Patriot Agents get paid from a rural bank in Cheongju. That bank gets funds from another ghost company, which gets them from an overseas bank, and so on. It leads to a Panama-registered company."
Ju Kang-rim pulled up the company's homepage on his phone.
"Patriot. Gerald's hitmen. Registered in Panama. Their mercenaries get funds via dummy accounts for covert ops."
"And?"
"Here's the issue."
Ju Kang-rim held up a finger.
"The source is USFK budget. Clint's diverting USFK funds for this."
Clint probably had some budget authority, but not for his private immortal army. And the amounts exceeded his discretion, for sure.
"Patriot's handling about 85 billion won. Just the traceable eight years."
USFK's annual burden topped a trillion. Impossible not to notice, unless Gerald's pressure kept it buried.
In short, Clint was siphoning US military funds for immortals on a whim.
"Impressive. You dug this up zombie hunting? Their records are locked tight. How?"
"No evidence, obviously. I'm not some super hacker cracking US military flows."
"...Then?"
"What matters is I know about it."
Ju Kang-rim had handled money laundering and budgets before. He knew how it worked, even if he didn't run it himself. To blackmail Clint, a root like 'Patriot' was enough.
"Then we investigate the bank for proof. Might tie to immortals."
"Branch manager's probably involved. But I'm not after small fry immortals."
Ju Kang-rim grinned.
"Clint McCallen. We can isolate that bastard."
"Clint..."
Yoo Wol-ryeong murmured, recalling the face she'd nearly crossed paths with before. Blonde, blue-eyed middle-aged white man. Straight out of a US movie—poster boy soldier. If he embezzled, it was no small scandal.
"Why siphon funds? Using his own immortal group, no less?"
"Retirement worries, maybe. Immortals have long retirements."
"Not my expertise. Not a carriage reaper's main duty."
"You caught Dongbang Sak with a charcoal wash, right?"
"Washing charcoal in a river and laundering through Panama shells and dummies share a word, but nothing else."
"Catch 'em however. World's complicated now, so methods evolve. Anyway, this isolates Clint."
Clint without USFK guards would be easier prey.
Yoo Wol-ryeong pondered, then frowned.
"While you were gone, Clint news came up. Judge if it helps or hurts your plan."
She pulled her laptop and set it before him. Ju Kang-rim scrolled past cute cat videos and dog-bell tricks to a news page.
"Shit."
In just two days, Clint McCallen had gone from major general to ROK-US Combined Forces Commander. A meteoric rise, but given he was an awakener, not so shocking. Awakener promotions were fast—no secret there.
The world was shifting strategies around awakeners and zombies. Awakener commanders made sense.
"Now I get why he let the munitions leak slide. And using Kangryeong Daegun..."
To oust the old guard and take their spots. Or rather, Gerald planting his people everywhere. Probably happening all over, or already had.
If Kangryeong Daegun had survived as a bigger threat, Clint would've crushed him to solidify his seat.
Listening to Clint McCallen's speech, Yoo Wol-ryeong said cautiously.
"Problem?"
"We need his head, and this is a problem?"
Ju Kang-rim shook his head with a long sigh.
"Actually, it's good."
"...Good?"
Yoo Wol-ryeong echoed, baffled.
"Some perverse thrill in picking high flowers?"
"Don't make it sound weird."
"Killing a congressman was big, but this? No joke."
"Just watch. Plan's fine."
"Ju Kang-rim?"
"Yes."
Shin Hee-soo—the hunter briefly called Godajok—replied with hands behind her back. She swallowed, scanning the surroundings.
The ROK-US Combined Forces office was chaotic with the ongoing move, but the man across from her sat neatly behind his desk.
"I remember. Classified as a con artist. Pathetic track record."
"Yes. But after meeting him, I concluded he might've actually killed Sergeant Lopez and Kangryeong Daegun."
"Killed them?"
Clint McCallen asked calmly, giving her a chance to retract.
But Shin Hee-soo doubled down.
"Yes. Kangryeong Daegun likely died by Ju Kang-rim's hand."