Certainty
Based on the homeless man Lee Hyeong-rak's testimony, Baeksol's domestic workshop was most likely somewhere near Gimpo Airport.
Of the spots around Gimpo Airport where the particular paving blocks Lee Hyeong-rak had described were still laid, there were three in total.
If Baeksol had driven the blindfolded Lee Hyeong-rak and parked near those three locations, the buildings he could have entered numbered well into the dozens.
And among those, buildings with basements totaled seven.
Past three in the morning, Yeon-woo pulled on a black hoodie, tugged the hood low over his face, and stepped out of the house.
I need to go to the site, check with my own eyes, and figure out which of those buildings is Baeksol's workshop.
Leaving home, Yeon-woo opened the door of a silver SUV parked on a quiet nearby alley and climbed into the passenger seat.
Han Hae-un, already in the driver's seat, started the car and spoke.
"It's been a while since you and I moved alone domestically, Team Leader — not since we acquired the Mokhwa Building, isn't it?"
"Has it?"
In the São Paulo operation, Hae-un had stayed behind in Korea running the desk; for Okinawa, he'd gone out with the operatives.
But unlike overseas ops, a domestic recon like this didn't benefit from more people.
Unlike other countries, Korea had more CCTV cameras than neighborhood dogs — more personnel only increased the chance of problems.
And the other three operatives were a sniper, special forces, and combat controller by background, specialized for large-scale combat. For this kind of work, it was wiser for just Yeon-woo and Hae-un, both former NIS, to move quietly.
"The National Intelligence Service trained more thoroughly on the 'intelligence' side of things, so it makes sense for us to handle this. Kim Su-hyeok and the others are relatively specialized for combat."
Hae-un tilted his head at Yeon-woo's words.
"But even on the combat side… if we're talking actual wars, haven't you fought in the most of them, Team Leader?"
"Well, if you want to get technical about it…"
Hae-un's words brought up Afghanistan, Iraq, Georgia, Israel — country after country.
Excluding intelligence work in civil-war zones like Myanmar, South Sudan, and Côte d'Ivoire, counting only real interstate wars, Hae-un wasn't wrong.
"No comment on that part. In this life I haven't even been near those countries."
Chatting about this and that, Hae-un's car arrived near the first pre-scouted suspect location.
Parking on one side of a side street, Hae-un pulled a camera shaped like binoculars from a bag on the back seat.
"This is the PCQ-71 we just purchased. I modified it a bit after receiving it — it's far better than what I used on active duty."
"Figures, coming from guys who fight in the desert. Intelligence work has always been about gear."
Equipment not publicly disclosed — primarily a thermal night-vision scope used by the Israeli military.
Refined through real use in the conflict with Palestine, Israeli gear was recognized as superior to even US equipment in certain fields.
Having experienced a great deal of urban combat like the fighting in Gaza, their thermal imaging equipment was top-tier.
Yeon-woo turned the thermal imager Hae-un handed him over in his hands.
"Exterior's been matte-blacked. The eyepiece with the lens is recessed, so even if we end up fighting somewhere like a Myanmar swamp later, mud won't get in — should be easy to use."
"…Excuse me? Do we have to fight in a Myanmar swamp later?"
"Mm, just a manner of speaking."
Hae-un snorted a laugh at that.
"Team Leader. You look excited about the new gear."
"……"
Inside the car, Yeon-woo and Hae-un peered around through the thermal night-vision like kids who'd just gotten the latest toy, checking security CCTV and any cameras that might be mounted on building exteriors.
Equipment sensitive enough to detect minute temperature differences could clearly pick up installed machinery and even alley cats slipping between walls, even at night.
"Two municipal security CCTVs at three o'clock."
"There's a security camera covering the exterior entrance of the red-brick multi-family house behind our vehicle."
"That building doesn't have a basement, right?"
"Correct. And there are multiple tenants."
So not that one.
"Hmm, nothing particularly suspicious. And the roads around here are too narrow. Unsuitable for trucks to come in when they finish a job and need to move cargo."
"Then I'll head to the next spot."
Hae-un drove to another nearby location.
Scanning the surroundings again with the thermal imager, Hae-un shook his head.
"Nothing notable on the right. Shall we move?"
"…Hold on."
Examining buildings near the paving blocks, Yeon-woo spotted something suspicious.
He zoomed in on the feed from the equipment for a closer look.
"Check 28-4."
"One moment. 28-4… Yes, it's a building with a basement."
"I think we've found it."
Yeon-woo reclined his seat slightly and shifted so Hae-un could see, then pointed at a building.
"Look at that two-story house."
A black barred gate and white cement walls surrounding the house. Inside the yard, stairs leading to the upper floor were visible.
It looked like the kind of place that would have a milk-delivery pouch hanging on the gate, and a Jindo dog in the yard once you pushed open the creaking iron door.
An ordinary two-story old house you could find in any neighborhood.
"Yes, I see it. No security cameras particularly visible."
"No — they mounted one on the roof looking down. Upper right."
At Yeon-woo's words, Hae-un zoomed in again.
Just as Yeon-woo said, a security camera was installed on the rooftop at the upper right of the building, angled to look down.
"Ah, confirmed."
"And look at the ground. The section with the black gate."
"Hmm, there's a slight slope?"
Following Yeon-woo's direction and examining the ground, he saw that the asphalt in front of the building's gate had been overlaid with cement, graded into a gentle slant.
Compared to the entrance of the neighboring house, it was clearly an unnecessary angle of slope. If anything, that gentle cement grade meant that once you opened the gate and stepped in, there'd be a drop of about fifteen centimeters down to the yard level.
If someone actually lived there, there was no reason to construct something like that in front of the gate.
"The reason they do it that way is so that when you back a large cargo truck right up against the gate and the rear wheels ride up a little…"
"Ah! Because the rear wheels are higher, the truck's container tilts at a slight angle."
Yeon-woo nodded at Hae-un's words.
"So it's less work when you're loading and unloading a lot of cargo. That's never a structure a residential home needs."
With a gentle slope, the person receiving goods inside the container had a much easier time, and stacking cargo at a slight angle meant less risk of the load toppling. This was a structure used at logistics centers that had to load cargo in bulk.
"Which means in the basement of that house that looks residential…"
"Unless someone opened a delivery company down there, there's a high chance it's their workshop."
"They got us. I was only thinking about commercial buildings — a residential basement…"
"And look carefully at the roof. At first I thought it was plumbing, but looking closer it's a ventilator."
Looking at the roof again through the thermal imager, Hae-un saw a silver windmill-shaped exhaust ventilator sticking out. For a private home — not even a villa or multi-family residence — it was quite large.
"I see. At that size, the sound of planes taking off and landing could carry down to the basement, just like Lee Hyeong-rak testified."
"For now, investigate everyone who enters or leaves that house going forward."
"Understood."
They left the Gimpo Airport house matter to the operatives and decided to focus on the drama for a while.
Issuing a search warrant required clearer evidence anyway, and it wasn't something that happened overnight.
Now filming for Parabola was right around the corner.
This drama would go straight into filming without a separate script reading.
The lead actors are all close with each other anyway, and they were heavily involved in character development and story from the planning stage.
This drama had five leads appearing as amateur basketball players, plus Jeong Su-yeon — Jeong Cheol-min's daughter, playing the manager role — for a total of six lead actors.
The other supporting and bit-part actors didn't carry much weight in the story, so they skipped the formal procedures.
Script readings do have the advantage of letting everyone find their chemistry, but our cast has already worked together plenty. Ultimately the remaining use is releasing the reading online to hook viewers before the premiere…
Even without a script reading, there was plenty of footage worth putting on YouTube. They'd shoot making-of films during production, and there was already a variety show being filmed.
Thinking of the variety show, Yeon-woo recalled the message from PD Bong Him-chan, who was handling the follow-up variety program.
Last time he asked if he could edit just part of the friendly match and pre-release it on the YouTube channel.
The variety show currently being filmed was originally planned as a follow-up program to air on the network and YouTube after the drama fully wrapped.
But as PD Bong said, editing just the friendly match content and releasing it as a kind of teaser would help promote the drama quite a bit, so they decided to pre-release it on a coordinated schedule.
Yeon-woo set down the script and picked up the report on the table.
Investigation Report on SBC Drama Daytona and Production Company Lake Film
While Kim Su-hyeok mixed among the homeless and wrestled with the smell, Lee Gyu-jin and Park Jung-hyeon had conducted a full-spectrum investigation, which Hae-un had compiled into this report.
As expected, the capital that had flowed into Lake Film was Baeksol's.
But word had spread through the industry that they'd recently refused additional production funding — and the reason was likely Yeon-woo and his team's doing.
With the Okinawa factory and warehouse reduced to ash, the resulting cash crunch would make continuing major investments difficult.
And the money already poured in wasn't recoverable either.
Daytona was a tentpole drama.
The term meant a supporting pillar of a tent — a work that mobilized massive production budgets to serve as a guaranteed hit, a prop holding everything up.
But what if a drama that spent that much production money and was considered a guaranteed hit ultimately fails?
For Baeksol, it would be a disaster piled on top of disaster.
Of course, Yeon-woo had no intention of planting moles among Daytona's cast or key staff the way Baeksol would, or of orchestrating dirty media plays to attack them.
We just need to get scheduled in the same time slot and go head-to-head.
He read through the Daytona scenario attached to the report.
As a longtime acting enthusiast dating back to his previous life, and as a seasoned actor-making machine, he reviewed it carefully — and reading Daytona's script, conviction settled in.
A drama plastered with overseas location shoots, scaled up for size alone, with a few car explosions and gunfire sprayed around — it lacked a narrative that ran through the whole thing.
And so, regarding the blockbuster-scale major drama called Daytona, he felt certainty.
Certainty that it would flop.