Chapter 248: A Looming Investigation

“I’m sorry to bring this up…”

“No, no. I appreciate you telling me beforehand. But are you sure? Is the Ministry of Justice really moving to get me?”

“Yes. A colleague from my training institute is at the Southern District Prosecutors’ Office. He was contacted by a senior from his university in the Ministry of Justice and sounded troubled. The order was to report directly without going through the upper ranks of the Southern District Prosecutors’ Office.”

The chief prosecutor wasn’t mistaken. This was the truth coming from the mouth of someone who received the direct order.

All sorts of thoughts swirled in his head.

Could he be connected to someone they needed as a scapegoat in this impeachment crisis?

Is the prosecution trying to control the general election by reining in National Assembly members? And was he chosen as the tool for that?

He shook his head.

Now isn’t the time for whys, but for figuring out who to find first.

“Director Jang, do you know who in the higher-ups gave this order?”

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t get that far. Since the Ministry of Justice’s Inspection Department started it, the highest-ranking person we can currently identify would be the Director of the Inspection Department.”

The Director of the Inspection Department is targeting him?

Absolutely not.

It would have to be at least the Minister of Justice or the Prosecutor General to target him, the second-in-command of Soonyang.

“Don’t be sorry. Anyway, thanks. I won’t forget this. Let’s grab some soju sometime.”

Lee Hak-jae hurriedly got up.

He had to quickly find the knife pointed at him and the bastard holding the handle.

As soon as he parted ways with Director Jang, he picked up his cell phone.

“Gather everyone immediately. No exceptions. Conference room… no, come outside. You know the Japanese restaurant in Gwanghwamun? Be there in thirty minutes.”

Lee Hak-jae got into the waiting sedan and shouted at the driver.

“Gwanghwamun. We need to get there within 30 minutes.”

“Yes, sir.”

Lee Hak-jae’s sedan sped from Seocho-dong to Gwanghwamun.

The owner came out to greet him warmly as he opened the door to the Japanese restaurant.

“Welcome, Chief of staff.”

“Are the guys here?”

“Yes. This way…”

His vision darkened as he stepped into the private room.

As if they had committed a crime, only three men avoided eye contact, waiting for Lee Hak-jae.

He felt ashamed for using the plural ‘guys’ when only three were here. Just three.

“Sit down. And look me straight in the eye. Did you commit a crime?”

As they cautiously sat down, Lee Hak-jae gulped down ice-cold water.

“Where are the others? Did they not come because they didn’t know? Or did they know but didn’t come?”

“We told them, but…”

“They didn’t want to come because it wasn’t their direct superior calling?”

“No, sir. Chief of staff. They said they were trying to sneak away discreetly.”

“Sneak away discreetly…”

It was true that he felt disappointed in the guys who didn’t attend. But wasn’t he the one who let them go? He even asked them to take his talented men and treat them well.

Lee Hak-jae sighed without realizing it.

He understood.

They might have thought they were part of a privileged class wielding immense power under him, but in the end, they were just salarymen.

They had to follow the orders of the person paying their hefty monthly salary and watch their step. That was the only way to get a raise and a promotion.

Now the person they needed to watch was different.

Jin Young-gi and Jin Dong-gi were their masters now.

Since it hadn’t been long since they switched allegiances, their cautiousness would be extreme.

With only three people showing up after a single phone call, Lee Hak-jae realized he was a fading tide.

“Chief of staff…”

The men who had kept their loyalty looked teary-eyed, perhaps feeling sorry for Lee Hak-jae’s miserable state.

“You bastards! Are you out of your minds? What are you doing right now? Don’t tell me you’re pitying me?”

“No, sir!”

Lee Hak-jae roared and stood up.

“I don’t want to badmouth the guys who aren’t here. They made the smart choice. I was stupid to call you out like the old days, and you were stupid to come. I’m not your boss anymore, so you didn’t have to come.”

Lee Hak-jae opened his wallet and placed a one million won check on the table.

“Grab some food before you go.”

Lee Hak-jae walked out, avoiding their gazes.

The early March night air was still biting.

“Damn it… couldn’t they have waited until after the 49th-day ceremony?”

* * *

“Hyung-nim, this isn’t good. There are rumors they’ve secured enough evidence to issue an arrest warrant.”

“Chief of staff, I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do to help. The guys who drew their swords now are the core of the prosecution. There are prosecutors who would jump in the fire for their orders.”

“How about you go abroad for a while? It might just be for the general election, so come back once things calm down after the election. It’ll be three months at most.”

Everyone Lee Hak-jae met was busy backing away.

“Chief of staff, the Blue House is a mess right now. We have to stop the impeachment. Making calls to the Ministry of Justice or the prosecution right now would cause a huge backlash. I’m sorry. We’ll put out the fire under our own feet first and then contact you.”

Even the Blue House, his last hope, turned its back on him. But considering the trouble they were in, even more so than him, it was understandable that they couldn’t help.

Lee Hak-jae slumped into his car, exhausted.

“Take me home.”

Not long after the car started, he was bothered by the driver constantly glancing in the rearview mirror.

“Hey. What are you doing? Why do you keep glancing back there?”

“Ah, it’s not that, but something’s been bothering me for a few days. I think we’re being followed.”

“Followed?”

He turned his head to look, but there was no way to tell which car it was among the many filling the road.

“These bastards, really!”

Lee Hak-jae took out his cell phone. He had held back, but now there was no other way. It might escalate into an all-out war, but it was time to strike the head of the snake. He had to go after the Minister of Justice first, the one clearly acting on the head’s orders.

He hesitated for a moment but eventually dialed the number.

The other person answered just as the ringing was about to stop.

— Oh, Chief of staff. It’s been a while.

“Minister. Let’s skip the pleasantries. I don’t have time for that.”

— Oh? Yes, right. You must be mentally and physically exhausted from handling Chairman’s funeral.

“You know everything, yet you’re playing dumb. I’ll cut to the chase. Stop it.”

— Excuse me? What are you talking about?

“If you truly don’t know, then that means you’re not cooperating with the Director of the Inspection Department. And if you’re pretending not to know, then you understand what I’m saying.”

— The Director of the Inspection Department?

“Be careful. If I open my mouth, my story will spread more widely than the President’s impeachment. If you can handle that, then keep going.”

Lee Hak-jae hung up first and gritted his teeth. If he threw out this kind of bait, the one holding the knife, not just the blades, would peek out.

But the knife blades showed up before the one holding the handle. And to make matters worse, it was in front of Lee Hak-jae’s house.

“Mr. Lee Hak-jae. Sorry to bother you so late, but we need a moment of your time.”

Two men in suits and one in a jacket.

Lee Hak-jae was dumbfounded.

He hadn’t expected the Minister of Justice to act so quickly.

“Where are you from?”

“Financial Investigation Department of the Central District Prosecutors’ Office.”

“Did the Minister send you?”

“We only see the Minister on TV. We junior prosecutors just follow the orders of our department head.”

“Voluntary escort?”

The two prosecutors grinned and said.

“You know the drill. Let’s go.”

The Minister of Justice couldn’t possibly be unaware that he wouldn’t willingly go with them. He must have taken follow-up measures. Lee Hak-jae wanted to know what they were.

“What if I refuse?”

“The warrant judge is on standby. If Mr. Lee Hak-jae simply goes inside his house now, a search warrant will be issued. Your house will be turned upside down. Are you okay with that?”

“An arrest warrant is also being prepared. There are reporters with cameras waiting at the Prosecutor’s Office. Can you handle that?”

The Minister of Justice’s clear warning came through the mouths of the junior prosecutors.

They were throwing his own words back at him.

Lee Hak-jae, glaring at the two junior prosecutors, slowly opened his mouth.

“My going-home time has gotten earlier since I quit my job. If we can finish before midnight, I’ll go.”

“We’ll get straight to the point. We promise.”

“You better keep that promise. Otherwise, you’ll see the Prosecutor General’s slush fund bank account numbers on the front page of the newspaper tomorrow.”

The Prosecutor General’s slush fund.

The shock of those words froze the two prosecutors.

“What are you doing? Lead the way. I told you, it needs to be done before midnight.”

Chief of staff Lee Hak-jae barked at the prosecutors as if they were his underlings.

* * *

Sitting in the Central District Prosecutors’ Office interrogation room, he drank a glass of water and waited for a while.

It was a predictable tactic, but it always worked.

Especially when you didn’t know why you were brought in, the anxiety was unbearable.

He had come willingly to hear why the Ministry of Justice was cornering him, but as the time he spent sitting alone grew longer, he couldn’t help but feel anxious.

The man who opened the interrogation room door looked familiar.

“Good evening, Chief of staff.”

“It’s not a good evening. And… who are you again? Have we met before?”

“We met at a dinner with the former Prosecutor General. I greeted you, but I wasn’t important enough for you to remember.”

The business card he handed over read ‘Criminal Planning Division, Prosecutor General’s Office’.

“Prosecutor General’s Office? The Inspection Department started this, and now you’ve mobilized the Prosecutor General’s Office too?”

“Rather than a specific department, everyone’s involved. You could call it a kind of TFT.”

“Has my situation fallen so low? That a mere division chief, not even a director, is sitting in front of me?”

“Isn’t there a saying, ‘Leaving home means hardship’?”

Leaving home?

It could simply be an expression of losing power because his connection to Soonyang was gone, but strangely, the word ‘home’ felt heavy.

“It’s clear that the Chairman’s sons are either condoning or supporting this.”

“Soonyang isn’t a charity, so there’s no reason for them to take care of someone who’s left the company. Please don’t ask me more. I don’t know the inner workings of Soonyang.”

“Then just tell me what you know.”

The Criminal Planning Division Chief placed several documents on the table.

“Your children have a penthouse in Hong Kong, a 15-story building in Seattle, USA, and a winery in the outskirts of France… which apparently means a brewery. I just learned that. I thought a winery was like a wine storage refrigerator. Anyway, this is just the known property, so if we dig deeper, overseas accounts will pour out, right?”

“We’ll talk about that after they pour out. And overseas real estate just requires paying inheritance tax… Anything else?”

“It’s not something that will end with just inheritance tax. You siphoned money through Soonyang’s overseas corporations, so you also need to consider the Foreign Exchange Transaction Act and embezzlement. You’re someone who knows how to avoid the law, so you know that this amount constitutes a serious crime, right?”

Now that he knew their hand, he needed to subtly show his own.

“If you’re planning to put me in the Prosecutor’s Office photo line, don’t bother. Your superiors know what I’ll say to the reporters there. They’ll be more interested in what comes out of my mouth than overseas real estate.”

The Planning Division Chief shrugged with an exaggerated expression.

“You’re bluffing hard. We know you don’t intend to escalate this into an all-out disclosure war. You might be willing to get hurt, but that would be like throwing dirt on Soonyang Group and even the late Chairman Jin’s grave. Surely you wouldn’t do that?”

“Whether it’s a bluff or not, we’ll see…”

They had confirmed each other’s threats.

Then, they also needed to confirm how to end this. Since the knife-wielders started it, their demands had to be heard.

“Now that you’ve tormented me this much, it’s your turn to say what you really want. Isn’t that why you brought me here?”

Just as the Planning Division Chief scratched his head and hesitated, the door opened, and a middle-aged man entered.

“Stop suffering and go back home, Chief of staff.”