The Truth Written Into the Record
4 a.m.
Seongmosimsim Hospital emergency room.
The hour when people were at their sleepiest.
The emergency room doors opened, and a man stepped inside.
“I’m the guardian of Do Jaehyun. He’s in there, isn’t he?”
“Guardian? What’s your relation to the patient? Family?”
The security guard at the small desk near the entrance gave the man in front of him a suspicious once-over from head to toe.
“No, I’m not family.”
At a glance, he did not look ordinary.
He gave off a dangerous air that had nothing to do with a salaried office worker, and the guard’s muscles went taut with wariness.
“I’m sorry, but only one guardian is allowed into the emergency room. If you’re not a spouse or direct family, that’s a problem.”
“I’m here on company business.”
“Company business...? Does that mean the patient doesn’t have any family?”
Red Dog, Kim Museong, ignored the guard’s need for a long explanation and handed over a business card instead.
“I’m Kim Museong.”
Kim Museong, Representative Director of Yeonhui Credit Union.
That was what the card said.
“Yeonhui Credit Union...? Don’t tell me you’re here to collect a debt from the patient. Hey, this is an emergency room. Even loan sharks have to have some decency. Get out before I call the police.”
“Hoo.”
It was hardly his first time coming to see so-called younger brothers, gang members injured in turf wars and hauled into the ER.
Of course, back then he had not gone through the formalities so politely, and the hospital was never a major place like the Ilseong Hospital where Do Jaehyun was being treated now.
“You seem to have misunderstood, but it’s not that.”
“I understand, so please wait here. Don’t go in, and I’ll pass along your card.”
A little while later.
“Representative Kim?”
“I...”
“Easy.”
I stopped Kim Museong just as he was about to bow at the waist out of instinct. The moment he had entered the emergency room, the place had gone so still that it had seemed to hush despite how frantically busy it was.
If Kim Museong started looking like a gangster here, everyone’s attention would turn toward him, and the embarrassment would land on me.
“You holding up all right?”
“What, did you think I’d be in a coma with an oxygen mask on?”
“I heard the rough outline from Representative Shin Gilwoo, but I was worried.”
At my dry jab, Kim Museong gave a wry smile.
“I’m fine.”
“That was a dangerous choice, Chairman.”
“How so?”
“I understand what you were trying to do, tying up the Kim Hasa Faction and Chairman Kim Jungyeong in one move. But still, to let yourself get shot like that... What kind of person does that?”
“More than you’d think.”
“Pardon?”
Unlike Kim Museong’s bitter smile, I let out a short laugh, one that came with a trace of memory.
In the close-quarters marksmanship training run by the special task unit I had served in, we had done something similar, only far more dangerous.
They would line up the unit members at attention, stand beer bottles on top of their heads, and then fire live rounds.
We wore body armor and ballistic vests, but it was still the kind of training that only worked if you trusted your comrades completely. It was not just about their shooting skill; it demanded a relationship grounded in human trust.
I didn’t know how Special Forces, UDT, HID, CCT, and the rest did it, but in the special task unit where I served, it was part of the regular curriculum.
Of course, it was a dangerous training method buried under top-secret classification, something never to be shown to the public or ordinary people.
Anyway, with that experience and those verified examples, I had been able to trust Gilwoo and make the move in Yangpyeong.
“More than you’d think, I said.”
“What kind of life have you lived?”
“If you’re curious, ask Gilwoo over drinks later. At first he’ll keep his mouth shut with all that security-handoff stuff, but once he gets some alcohol in him, he’ll spill everything. Well, you’d need to build some rapport first.”
“Rapport...?”
Good grief. Maybe it was because I had just come back from the edge of death after staking my life on this after a long time, but the language from my previous life had slipped out before I noticed.
“It means building familiarity. I said it in English by mistake. It’s not important, so forget it.”
I pulled my clothes over the bandage where blood was slowly seeping from my right shoulder and got out of bed.
“Handle the discharge paperwork. They stitched and disinfected it enough. You’ll be fine.”
* * *
2 p.m.
“You’re Do Jaehyun, correct? Detective Park Jinkyu, Metropolitan Investigation Unit.”
After resting at home following discharge, I went to the police station.
“Yes, that’s right.”
I had already heard the results of the case from Senior Prosecutor Park Kiwan of the Western District Prosecutors’ Office.
“Occupation... let’s put office worker. Address... ah, I’ll write down what’s on your ID here. Is that all right?”
“Yes.”
“This is just a victim statement interview, so there’s no need to feel pressured. Take your time.”
Whether Prosecutor Park Kiwan and Jeong Taeseong had already pulled some strings, the detective in charge of the case, Park Jinkyu, was quite friendly.
Now all I had to do was act the part of the victim and follow the already written script.
“Nothing else is a major issue, but the victim was at the scene with someone named Shin Gilwoo. Why were you there?”
“I was scared. The man who kidnapped my nephew told us not to contact the police and to come only with Shin Gilwoo and me. It would have been fine if I’d been the only one hurt, but I couldn’t risk anything happening to my nephew, so I had no choice but to go along with Kim Jungyeong’s demands.”
“Hmm... In fact... I mean, wasn’t the culprit who kidnapped your nephew’s friend, Jo Jinyoung, someone else entirely? He would have been arrested in Gangnam, so why didn’t you go there?”
A sharp question. If I hadn’t passed the bar exam, or if I hadn’t had experience with police interviews, I could have been turned from victim to suspect in an instant.
“I found out later. Through Shin Gilwoo, I learned that it wasn’t my nephew who’d been kidnapped, but my nephew’s friend. That’s why I was able to respond calmly. If it really had been my nephew, I would have gone straight to Gangnam to rescue him. I’m sorry to the police, but if my nephew’s life had been on the line, I wouldn’t have even reported it.”
“I understand. If it were my family in that situation, I’d have done the same. So, to save your nephew’s friend Jo Jinyoung, you contacted the riot unit captain of Mapo Police Station, Jeong Taehyeong, with whom you were already acquainted.”
“That’s right. It was my first time dealing with anything like this, after all...”
“Then why did you and Shin Gilwoo go with Chairman Kim Jungyeong?”
“This time it ended up being a misunderstanding, but if I didn’t comply with Chairman Kim Jungyeong’s demands, I felt my family could be harmed at any time, so I had no choice but to go.”
“My goodness... When a nationally known figure like Kim Hasa’s Kim Jungyeong uses family as leverage and threatens people, what parent could possibly feel safe? That must have been terribly stressful.”
Detective Park Jinkyu wrote up the statement by naturally echoing my words, exactly as Prosecutor Park had instructed in the investigation directive. Of course, that also neatly added extortion to Kim Jungyeong’s list of charges.
“Hmm... There is one sensitive point here. This morning, Shin Gilwoo already completed an interview with his lawyer present, and I’d like to confirm whether this is accurate. Since you were there too, I don’t think there will be much that differs, so if you’re all right with it, I’ll draft your statement based on Shin Gilwoo’s testimony.”
Park Jinkyu handed me the statement paperwork Shin Gilwoo had prepared. Of course, it had not actually been written by Shin Gilwoo; it had been drafted according to the opinion of the lawyer who had accompanied him. There was very little there I needed to touch.
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“Understood. Kim Jungyeong of the Kim Hasa Faction threatened Do Jaehyun and Shin Gilwoo to hand over their company shares and led dozens of sturdy men... meaning ‘organized gangsters’... into the night with weapons, where they assaulted... no, tried to kill Do Jaehyun and Shin Gilwoo. Is that right?”
“Yes.”
“And in the process, you were forced to defend yourself, and the cornered Kim Jungyeong pulled out a gun and shot you...”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Understood. Anyone can see that the statement of Do Jaehyun, a righteous businessman from Korea University Law School, is highly credible. There is, however, testimony from the gangsters that you drove a car through the front gate...”
“Ah, that...”
“You don’t need to say anything. It’s not important.”
“No, it wasn’t me. The truth is...”
“Oh? Is that so?”
The corners of Park Jinkyu’s mouth lifted slightly. He had read something in my eyes. And then I gave him the answer and the result he was hoping for.
“Kim Gi-jung, who directly ordered the kidnapping, forced Shin Gilwoo and me into a car and drove to Chairman Kim Jungyeong’s home.”
“I see. So Kim Gijung ‘confined’ the two of you in a vehicle?”
Just like that, the reigning boss of the Kim Hasa Faction, Kim Gijung, picked up an additional confinement charge.
“Yes. Kim Gijung already knew the anonymous kidnappers called Doti and Narci had been caught, and he threatened us by saying all of this had been Chairman Kim Jungyeong’s doing and that he knew nothing about it. Then Chairman Kim Jungyeong called Kim Gijung, and right then, in the car, Kim Jungyeong took the call.”
“Oh, what did they say on the phone?”
“Chairman Kim Jungyeong told Kim Gijung to take all the blame and not splash filth on his own name. He said if not, he’d kill Kim Gijung. Then Kim Gijung said that since things had already come to this, he had nothing left to lose, and told me to see who survived, that he’d kill Kim Jungyeong for me, and that later I’d better not go to the police station and say anything stupid.”
“Ah... now the pieces are finally fitting together.”
Park Jinkyu slapped his knee and rattled away at the keyboard, delighted.
“So Kim Gijung, facing the prospect of being cast out by the organization, seized the crisis as an opportunity and tried to take out Kim Jungyeong. In the process, he forcibly ‘took’ your vehicle as well and went to Chairman Kim Jungyeong’s residence.”
“That’s right.”
“That explains it. I hadn’t understood how you and Shin Gilwoo dealt with so many gangsters, but now I see. Kim Gijung getting beaten to within an inch of his life by Kim Jungyeong’s golf club at the scene means he was punished after trying to stage a rebellion within the organization.”
“Yes.”
“And naturally, almost half of the Kim Hasa Faction members at the Yangpyeong scene were people Kim Gijung had gathered, right?”
“I don’t know for sure... but probably something like that. I heard Kim Gijung on his phone ordering the members to gather in Yangpyeong from inside the car. And he threw the phone into the river by the time we crossed Paldang, saying it would be a problem.”
Of course, that part was my script and a lie.
Kim Gijung and Kim Jungyeong would feel wronged, but those bastards had no right to feel wronged. They had spent their lives threatening, beating, and committing every kind of evil against other people; they ought to swallow this much without complaint.
“Destroying evidence and ordering violence. So in the end, this was a power struggle between gangs. You were hit by the bullet Kim Jungyeong fired in the midst of the Kim Jungyeong and Kim Gijung factions annihilating each other, and barely won by surviving.”
“Yes.”
“Those filthy bastards...”