Chairman Do Takes the Forty Percent Deal
“Welcome, Chairman.”
By the time I finished my business at the bank and stepped into Yeonhui Credit Union, Kim Museong came hurrying out as if he had been waiting for me with his eyes peeled open all day.
“Chairman, I think you’ll want to see this.”
He laid a thin document envelope on the table.
Ring-ring-ring!
“Hold on, Museong. Let me take this call first.”
“Understood.”
Just as I was about to check the contents of the envelope, my phone rang. The caller was Manager Oh Handong.
“Chairman, this is Handong. Representative Kim Deokjin asked me to get in touch because he said he had something to tell you. Do you have a moment?”
“Go ahead.”
Without meaning to, the corner of my mouth lifted at Handong’s words. If Kim Deokjin of MC Soft had planned to turn down my investment, there was no reason for him to call me like this.
“Chairman, thank you for your investment. Actually, I’m calling because of another proposal.”
“A proposal?”
“I can’t tell you his name, but a famous actor invested one billion won in my company together with several other investors. The condition was that they’d receive 15 percent of the company in return.”
“When was that?”
“A year ago.”
“I see. So the 1.1 billion won I gave you was a bridge investment?”
“That was the original plan. We needed funding because one of the games we were developing hit a rough patch, and the investors asked to recover their principal of one billion won in exchange for 10 percent of the equity.”
The old investor trick. Put money into an early startup under the name of an angel investor, then, when the risk starts looking even slightly real, cash out through a bridge round.
Investors had been using that method for years.
“I heard a little about Chairman Do Jaehyun from Manager Oh Handong. So I want to stake MC Soft’s future on you. In conclusion...”
I could hear Kim Deokjin swallowing hard over the phone.
“Please invest three billion won. If you do, I’ll give you all of the early investors’ shares, plus an additional 5 percent of the company.”
“That’s not enough.”
“...Pardon? I thought Chairman Do would feel the same way I do. I see now this was a difficult ask.”
“For 3 billion won, MC Soft stock at 20 percent... That won’t satisfy me.”
“...How much are you asking for?”
“Forty percent.”
“Chairman Do. That’s...”
When you wanted to get what you wanted out of someone, a little push and pull was necessary. But this was enough.
Now it was time to drive the nail in.
“I’m talking about 10 billion won for 40 percent.”
“One, one billion won?!”
“Yes. In return, I’d like you to come to me whenever you need additional investment in the future. I don’t want any other investors coming in. Like you, I believe MC Soft will grow into something huge.”
“Then the management rights...”
“I won’t interfere with management. Let’s make them non-voting shares. Finish the paperwork with Manager Oh Handong.”
“Thank you, thank you. Chairman.”
Thank me? No, I’m the one who should be grateful.
“I look forward to working with you.”
I hung up in high spirits.
After Dexon, the company I had wanted to invest in, Kim Deokjin’s MC Soft would become the second company in the world to launch an MMORPG.
And when that happened, it would become a once-in-a-century hit, changing the shape of the game market not just in Korea but across the world.
So if I could get 40 percent of a unicorn like that for only 10 billion won, it was enough to make me want to dance.
“Sorry, that call ran long.”
I put my phone down and checked the contents of the envelope Kim Museong had handed me.
Inside were instant Polaroids.
One photo showed the daycare Jinyoung went to, and another showed me waiting in front of it for him. It was me in the pictures.
“Wait, this...”
And then.
In the final photo, a child wearing the yellow hat and backpack from Jinyoung’s daycare was getting into the black sedan I had seen that morning.
“A courier brought them just before you arrived, Chairman.”
“...”
Then, as if on cue, my phone rang again.
A call from a hidden number, the kind that no longer existed.
An icy foreboding ran down my spine.
“...This is Do Jaehyun.”
“Good afternoon.”
The voice on the other end was definitely not the voice of a man who worked at a daycare.
“I’m speaking with Jinyoung’s guardian, correct?”
Jinyoung had been kidnapped...?
It was something that had never happened in my previous life.
My hand started to shake.
Calm down. This was the moment to be cold.
Without saying a word, I took Kim Museong’s phone into my hand and typed out a message.
- Go outside and contact Shin Gilwoo first.
Confirm exactly what’s going on.
There could be people watching, so don’t leave the building.
And call Captain Jeong Taeseong at Mapo Police Station and have him trace the cell tower.
Tell him it’s urgent. It’s about my nephew.
“...”
Kim Museong carefully took the phone and, bowing his head, left the office.
“Did I call the wrong number? I thought this was the guardian’s phone for Do Jinyoung...”
The man’s voice dripped with a smiling sort of malice, the kind that scraped at your insides.
Confirmed.
This bastard had targeted me, my weak point, my family. What mattered most was that the voice coming through the phone was not one I remembered.
Then there were only two answers.
Either I had unknowingly made an enemy sometime without realizing it, or he was the underling of someone who had recently taken offense at me.
“No, it’s me. Where’s Jinyoung?”
“He followed along happily after I told him I was the uncle’s man. I bought him candy, and we watched cartoons together too... Don’t worry. He’s doing fine. For now.”
“Put Jinyoung on.”
“Put him on...? That’s a pretty short way to speak.”
“...”
I needed to buy time until Kim Museong got through to Gilwoo and confirmed the situation.
If Gilwoo had been with him, this never would have happened. But if Jinyoung had been kidnapped even with Gilwoo there, then the situation was far more serious than I wanted to imagine.
The Shin Gilwoo I knew would die before he ever handed over my nephew.
“Are you alone?”
“Huh? What are you talking about...?”
“Is Jinyoung the only one you’ve got with you?”
“Haha, you son of a bitch. Still haven’t figured out what’s going on, have you?”
The bastard’s voice turned cocky, thick with superiority.
“Want me to send you one of the kid’s fingers? Or maybe one of those soft little ears?”
“...”
“Nothing to say? Why don’t you try talking down to me again? Why so quiet?”
“I need to know if it’s one or two...”
“Huh?”
“So I can price the ransom properly. An hostage is only valuable while he’s alive and unharmed, isn’t he?”
“Haha, holy shit. You really are the kid’s uncle, huh?”
Whether I’d hit the right nerve or not, he spent the next three minutes spewing profanity and shouting.
There were two reasons I’d provoked him.
First, there was the E-911 trace that Kim Museong had asked Captain Jeong Taeseong at Mapo Police Station to handle. In the early 2000s, GPS location tracking wasn’t nearly as developed as it was now, so I needed to buy time for them to estimate the user’s rough location based on the signal strength of the cell tower the phone was connected to.
The second reason was to make sure I remembered every little sound beyond the man’s voice. I wanted to catch even the smallest details while speaking with him.
Like an echo mic switched on in a karaoke room, the resonance of the man’s voice suggested he might be underground or in some sealed space. And there was a good chance he was using speakerphone, which meant there had to be at least one accomplice. This wasn’t a lone operator.
“One billion won.”
I’d already taken from him everything I could get. All that was left was to buy time.
“What?”
“I’ll give you one billion won in cash. I won’t even tell you to send the kid first. I’ll put 100 million down at a time and place of your choosing. You decide how to receive the money. You get the 100 million, and all you need to prove is that Jinyoung is safe. No photos, though. It has to be by phone.”
“Hah... The uncle’s got more money than I thought.”
The man who had been spewing threats and curses a moment ago now had a new emotion in his voice: excitement.
One billion won.
And one hundred million of that would be in his hands right away. He was probably thrilled at the thought. No matter who had sent him, or how much he was getting paid, there was no way a sane person would hand over more than 100 million won to a bastard rotten enough to kidnap a child.
“Good. Then for now... Uh, bro, sir?! I’m sorry, I’ll cut it off right n...”
The man’s voice suddenly dropped.
And a moment later.
“I’ll contact you again. And consider this a warning. I know exactly what you’re doing right now. If you try anything stupid, it won’t be funny. You know what I mean? Keep your phone in your hand. You never know when I’ll call.”
He hung up, leaving only that same low, controlled voice behind as before.
“Chairman. It’s Representative Shin Gilwoo.”
Then Kim Museong, who had been waiting outside the office for my call to end, rushed back in and handed me his phone.
“Yeah, it’s me.”
“Hyung, Jinyoung is safe right now. I don’t know what happened, but he’s still unharmed, and I’m on my way to him now.”
“...Good.”
For a moment, it felt as if my legs had given out and the strength had drained from my whole body.
“Yes. Jinyoung left his bag behind, so I...”
To sum up Gilwoo’s explanation, this was what happened.
Gilwoo had dropped Jinyoung off at daycare and confirmed that Jinyoung had gotten on the daycare bus.
And now Jinyoung was apparently on a tourist bus heading to a training camp in Pocheon.
“One of Jinyoung’s friends, a kid named Jo Jinyoung. When he was about to get on the bus, two men claiming to be his uncles showed up and put the kid in the car. I don’t think Jo Jinyoung’s parents even know he’s been taken yet.”
“I know, so just stay at the company.”
“Hyung, what are you talking about? I’m already moving toward Jinyoung.”
“Turn around.”
“Hyung, Jinyoung is like my own nephew too. How am I supposed to do that?”
“Listen.”
Gilwoo fell silent at my low, commanding tone.
“The bus Jinyoung is on is headed to Idong in Pocheon. Did you forget what’s there?”
“There’s... a cemetery, and the Ottogi unit?”
“Dong-su happens to be with the 8th Division reconnaissance unit right now. Ask him to secure the child and the vehicle.”
“Ah...?”
Only then did it seem Gilwoo understood what I meant. No matter how fast he moved from Seoul, the bus Jinyoung was on would already be close to Pocheon by the time he got there.
But the division reconnaissance unit in Pocheon was different.
Given the nature of a recon battalion, which was always ready to move out and make first contact when infiltrating enemies were detected, they’d be prepared to deploy at any time. The best move was to have them meet the bus Jinyoung was on before anyone else did.
“They’re probably already watching you too. Go back and wait.”
“Understood. But this has to be left to me. I don’t know what those bastards are after, but I’m going to grind them into dust.”
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