The Operation to Arrest Shin Jaeguk (1)
Hotel where Gangryonghoe members were staying. Park Jaehyuk sat on the bed in his room, carefully examining the USB he had just received from Ga-young. 'Give this USB to someone named Jang Seongyun and ask about my father...?'
Thinking that, Jaehyuk recalled what his mother, Han Sejin, had told him—that his father had died before his younger sister Park Dahyun was born. Back in middle school, after being called a fatherless bastard by some delinquents, he had beaten down over ten of them on the spot. Returning home seething with rage, he had asked where his father was, only to hear those words. Learning that the father he had believed dead was actually alive left Jaehyuk deeply confused. At the same time, resentment welled up over how the man had never appeared before his children for twenty-five years and had not even attended the funeral of his own brother, Park Minho.
'I need to look into this more carefully once I arrive in Korea.'
Just then, someone knocked on the door. Jaehyuk slipped the USB under his pillow and called out, "Who is it?"
"It's me." At the sound of Lee Jeonghan's voice, Jaehyuk got up and opened the door. Jeonghan stepped inside.
"What's up?"
"Figured I'd hide out here for a bit and talk."
"Hide out?"
"Shin Chaeyoon. She's been coming to my room nonstop and it's getting annoying."
Jaehyuk offered some advice. "Tell her you've got a girlfriend and keep some distance."
"That's the plan. Besides, there's already someone I'm interested in."
"Yeah? What kind of girl?"
"Japanese woman who just moved in next door. She's two years older than me."
"Ooh, an older woman? How is she? Your type?"
Jeonghan thought of Yukiko with her white hair smiling at him and felt the corners of his mouth lift without realizing it. "Honestly... she's exactly my type. But I'm hesitant to get too close."
"Makes sense. In my case, my girlfriend comes from an insanely powerful family, so that's a pretty unusual situation..."
Jeonghan changed the subject. "By the way... are you going to believe what that woman said earlier?"
"I don't know... Honestly, it feels suspicious, but..."
"Do you have a laptop?"
"Laptop? Yeah, I do."
"Let's plug in that USB you got and check it out. We need to figure out why she gave it to you."
Jaehyuk and Jeonghan inserted the USB into the laptop, but when they tried to open the files...
"Huh? What the hell? It's password-protected."
Jaehyuk looked flustered. Jeonghan studied the password field, then placed his hands over the keyboard.
"What are you going to do?"
"There's a trick for situations like this."
As Jeonghan's fingers flew across the keys, the screen switched to a black background with green text. Jaehyuk watched in amazement. "You look like some hacker from a movie."
"Picked it up during an operation with the Green Berets. When the screen looks like this, you press this key and that key..."
Jeonghan tapped a few more keys and hit Enter. A red notification window labeled "Red Bomb" popped up.
"What is that? Red Bomb?"
"Hmm... this could be dangerous."
"Why? What is it?"
"Red Bomb is a security program used by the CIA and allied intelligence agencies. If certain conditions are met, it deploys a lethal virus that completely fries the CPU of whatever device it's running on."
He stared at the screen with a troubled expression. "If you enter the wrong password even once, it triggers automatically. Once that happens, the files on this USB can't be recovered by any normal means, and your laptop will be toast from the virus."
"So one wrong try and we're screwed?"
"This is military-grade software you can't get through civilian channels. How the hell is it installed here? Who exactly is that woman? To obtain something like this, you'd need approval through a complicated process at the CIA or the NIS."
"Then maybe she's closely connected to the NIS or another intelligence agency?"
"Could she be... a spy?"
"We might need to ask the agents supporting us to crack it."
"The NIS guys are probably better with computers than I am. Should I ask them?"
Just then, a message arrived on Jaehyuk's phone. He read it.
[Just in case, don't ask the NIS agents to crack it.]
[I'll send you the passwords. Look at the files first and decide whether to hand them over to the NIS agents or not.]
What...? How did she know?
Another message followed with the passwords.
"Perfect timing. How did the password message arrive at this exact moment?"
As Jaehyuk examined the passwords, something struck him as odd. "Hold on... if you remove the 30,000 from this one, it's my mom's birthday. And this one, if you remove the 50,000, it's Dahyun's birthday..."
"Hey, this one with the 70,000 removed is your birthday. And this..."
"It's Dahyun's resident registration number backwards. There's also the issuance dates of our IDs reversed."
"Seriously, what is this? She turned every number related to your family into passwords?"
Both men stared at the message in confusion, then entered the passwords one by one. Once they bypassed the protection, the files opened.
"What the hell is this?"
"Is this... real?"
The contents of the files were as follows:
Cha Jinyong, a former prosecutor turned National Assembly member. For approximately fifteen years, he had manipulated presidential elections to install candidates close to him in the Blue House. Using North Korean special forces defectors brought in through Gangryonghoe's human trafficking operations, he had secretly built his own private military force called Yeonghoda. He had used Yeonghoda to assassinate political opponents, disguising the murders as accidents or suicides. Leveraging the connections and information networks of the cartel he created, he orchestrated real estate and financial frauds while manipulating the media. His cartel included not only criminal organizations like Gangryonghoe but also corporate executives from chaebols, high-ranking officials from major media outlets, police, prosecutors, the National Assembly, and even the NIS. The victims of Cha Jinyong's crimes numbered far more than one or two, and countless ordinary citizens had suffered indirect damage. There was also information suggesting he could become a presidential candidate.
"Does this... even make sense?"
Stunned by the sheer scale of the information, Jaehyuk and Jeonghan stared at the monitor with their mouths open. Jaehyuk spoke first. "Jeonghan, we shouldn't pass this to the NIS. If it's true, then the agents we met earlier are working with Cha Jinyong. Just like it says here."
He pointed to the section mentioning that the agents they had met were connected to Cha Jinyong.
"You're right. But can we trust that woman either? This isn't ordinary information, so we need to think carefully."
Jaehyuk looked at the file on Cha Jinyong and said, "I'll handle it. We both keep this between us. Got it?"
"Yeah. Obviously."
Meanwhile, in an abandoned building in Vietnam.
"Ugh..."
"Persistent. Even in this state, he won't say a word."
The Jawolbang members clicked their tongues as they looked at Li Xiaokan, who remained silent about the files Jang Caoping possessed despite being tortured to the brink. Stripped naked, Li Xiaokan had his left eye gouged out, all ten fingernails ripped off, and his right ear severed. Thick awls pierced the backs of both hands, and alligator clips were attached to both nipples.
"Hey. If we go any further, you won't live a normal life. Why not end it here and live an ordinary life far from the underworld?"
One Jawolbang member tried to persuade him, but Li Xiaokan glared at him with his remaining eye. "Shut the hell up... I really... don't know..."
"He won't talk. Usually, electric torture gets them to open up..."
One member spoke to Dou Yuan in disbelief. Dou Yuan approached Li Xiaokan and said, "Are you keeping quiet for Jang Caoping's sake? I'd call that misplaced loyalty..."
"Loyalty...? Don't make me laugh. You think I still have any loyalty left for that bastard who abandoned us and ran first? I really don't know!"
"Are you worried we'll kill you if you reveal the files' location? I promise. Tell us where they are and we won't kill you."
But Li Xiaokan didn't believe him. In the ruthless underworld where schemes and power struggles reigned, who actually kept their word? Especially when dealing with Jawolbang, the most notorious triad in Taiwan.
"You should talk while you still can."
Dou Yuan glared at Li Xiaokan with a menacing expression. "I really don't know!! I swear!!"
"......I gave you a chance."
After saying that, Dou Yuan snapped his fingers. Several Jawolbang members dragged in a woman. She was crawling on all fours like a dog, a collar around her neck. Her eyes were unfocused, as if drugged. Li Xiaokan recognized her instantly.
"Ah... no... Mei Ling!!"
She was Li Xiaokan's younger sister, Li Mei Ling. She stared blankly ahead, not even recognizing her brother.
"I figured you'd react like this, so I had your sister kidnapped and given some drugs. She resisted at first, but later she was begging to be held."
Dou Yuan smiled with a chilling, spine-tingling grin. At his nod, several members surrounded her. Li Xiaokan wept from his remaining eye and pleaded. "No... please!!"
"You should have taken the chance when I offered it. This is on you."
At another nod from Dou Yuan, the members subjected her to degrading sexual acts and torture.
"I'll talk!!! Jang Caoping gave the files to a journalist he knows and told him to send them to the police if he doesn't hear from him for two days!!! The journalist's name is Liu Zhouxian!!!"
Dou Yuan nodded. He pressed a Glock 34 to Li Xiaokan's head and pulled the trigger, killing him instantly.
"If you'd spoken when you had the chance, both you and your sister could have lived..."
One member asked, "What about the woman?"
"Her face is too pretty to just kill. Keep her drugged and use her. Throw her away when she's no longer useful."
Wu Caojin entered and asked Dou Yuan, "Any information? Did you get it?"
"Yes. We just learned that a journalist named Liu Zhouxian has the files."
"Then Lao Kai and I will acquire the information in Taiwan. Dou Yuan, you have a separate task."
Wu Caojin glanced at Li Mei Ling surrounded by the members and frowned slightly. "Let's talk outside. Sorry for ruining the mood."
Once outside, they continued.
"What task do you mean?"
"Steal the 'Magician of Opium' that Gangryonghoe secured. They're planning to smuggle him back to Korea soon, so locate him and move."
"Understood. But... how will we locate him?"
Wu Caojin grinned. "There are ways."
He took out his phone and made a call in Vietnamese. "It's me. Proceed with that now."
The next day, Gangryonghoe members were planning Shin Jaeguk's illegal entry schedule. In a meeting of executives, Kim Hyun spoke. "Looking at the schedules for smuggling into Korea, the fastest is departing Vung Tau at 3 a.m. the day after tomorrow."
"Vung Tau is risky. Shin was chased there before, and the Honglyeonbang remnants haven't completely disappeared. Some might still be targeting him."
When Ha-jun voiced his concern, Du-won reassured him. "That's why we're here. A few escorts should be enough."
"Who should we assign as escorts?"
Kang-hoon asked, one leg crossed. Tae-hyun answered, "Myself, Section Chief Park Jaehyuk, Employee Lee Jeonghan, and some capable guys from our Vietnam branch would be good."
"If Deputy Manager Kang goes, there shouldn't be any worries."
"Section Chief Park Jaehyuk with Deputy Manager Kang... sounds fine."
At Tae-hyun's suggestion, Hyun and Kang-hoon trusted him and accepted the plan. Ha-jun and Du-won nodded in agreement.
"Then I'll book the departure from Vung Tau at 3 a.m. the day after tomorrow."
Tae-hyun nodded. "Understood. I'll inform Section Chief Park Jaehyuk and Employee Lee Jeonghan of the schedule."