The elevator doors slid open with a short chime, and Yu Jong-hoon, deputy editor of the Geumseong Ilbo's economics department, stepped out.
The stuffy, damp air unique to underground parking lots greeted him immediately. With his hair grown out messily and his tie loosened, Yu ambled along, scanning the rows of tightly packed cars between the thick concrete pillars.
"Where is it…" he muttered under his breath, sounding slightly annoyed as he shoved both hands into his trouser pockets and looked around.
Then, near a pillar painted with the number A12 in white, he spotted a familiar Sonata II. He paused, checked quickly to see if anyone was watching, and walked straight toward the car.
In one swift motion, he reached out, opened the door, and slipped into the passenger seat.
"Reporter Yu. Long time no see."
Turning his head, he saw Lee Cheol-gyun, wearing a light jumper, smiling at him from the driver's seat.
"If you had something to say, you could've just called. Why make me come down here?" Yu drawled, sounding indifferent.
Lee placed one hand casually on the steering wheel and replied in a low, deliberate voice.
"I came to give you something—a scoop. But if you're busy, well, I can't help that."
The moment the word scoop left his lips, Yu's eyes lit up. He immediately straightened himself in his seat.
"Did you just say a scoop?"
Like a journalist starved for exclusives, Yu bit the bait without hesitation. Lee, inwardly amused, thought to himself, Of course. Some things never change.
But outwardly, he showed nothing. Instead, he tossed the words out nonchalantly.
"It's a big one, but… guess it's a pity."
At that, Yu turned his whole body toward him, urging him to hurry up.
"What kind of story is it?"
"You said you were busy."
"That was just a figure of speech. You came all the way to my office to tell me, didn't you?"
"I could always hand it over to Bang from Sechang Daily, instead."
The mention of rival newspaper Sechang Daily made Yu's face tighten in urgency.
"Come on, are we really going to be like this between us? Don't forget I helped you out a lot during the Donghae Group affair."
"That's why I came here in person. But since you kept saying you were busy, what else could I do?"
"Tsk. Fine."
Yu Jong-hoon frowned, then shook his head in defeat.
"Alright, sorry for grumbling, okay? The editor-in-chief's been barking at me since morning, and I guess it put me in a foul mood."
"What's he saying this time?"
"The usual stuff. Stop loafing around the office and bring back an exclusive. As if that's easy."
At that, Lee Cheol-gyun reached into the door pocket and pulled out a fairly thick manila envelope.
"Bring him this, and I guarantee he won't nag you for a while."
"What is it?"
Yu quickly grabbed the envelope and opened it, pulling out the documents inside. He flicked on the small light above his head and began examining them intently.
While watching him out of the corner of his eye, Lee rolled his window down slightly from the driver's seat.
From inside his jumper, he pulled out a crumpled pack of cigarettes, plucked one out with practiced ease, and held it between his lips. With a flick of a disposable lighter, the tip glowed red. Resting one arm on the window, he drew a deep drag and exhaled leisurely.
Soon, the car was filled with the smell of smoke, the only other sound being the rustling of papers as Yu turned page after page.
Time passed. When the cigarette had burned almost down to the filter, Lee stubbed it out by jamming it into the opening of an empty coffee can. The butt sizzled damply, smoldering in the leftover liquid before going out with a faint curl of white smoke.
By then, Yu had gone through all the documents. He lifted his head, his face flushed with excitement, and stared at Lee.
"Well? Useful enough?" Lee asked, closing the window again.
"More than useful," Yu said, his voice alight. "If I show this to the editor, he'll be over the moon! But how on earth did you get your hands on all this?"
"You don't need to know that. Just tell me—can you put it on the front page tomorrow in bold? If you can't, well, I might as well pass it along to Reporter Bang."
Startled, Yu clutched the envelope tight and tucked it behind his back, as though guarding it from being snatched away.
"Of course I can. If the editor refuses, I'll grab him by the collar myself and make sure it runs on page one. And quit with that Reporter Bang talk, will you?"
"Heh, fine."
Yet Yu still wasn't fully reassured. Keeping the envelope hidden behind him, he cast another careful glance at Lee.
"But everything written here—it's all true, right?"
"Of course. You've seen the evidence yourself, and you still don't believe it?"
When Lee Cheol-gyun gave him a sour look, Yu Jong-hoon quickly shook his head.
"No, I just… wanted to double-check."
"Hmph."
Lee gave a dry chuckle through his nose and shoved the coffee can with the stubbed-out cigarette into the car's cup holder.
Meanwhile, Yu hugged the envelope to his chest like it was something precious, frowning as he spoke.
"If what's written here is accurate, the Rothschilds are nothing short of crooks."
His voice was filled with outrage, and Lee answered with a cold, cynical tone.
"They've always been like that. Sure, our desperation for foreign capital after the IMF crisis explains some of it… but for our government to let itself be toyed with without even realizing it—that's the real stupidity."
Yu responded with a bitter expression.
"Without the faintest clue about their filthy schemes, our leaders rolled out the red carpet when Brian Peterson, chairman of the Rothschild Fund, visited Korea. He went to the Blue House with the Prime Minister to meet President Kim Jae-choon, receiving the kind of treatment granted to an imperial envoy. Imagine how much he must have laughed at us inside."
"That's why we can't let them keep mocking us."
"Absolutely not. We have to put a stop to it."
Yu's desire to land an exclusive scoop was burning strong—but more than that, before he was a journalist, he was a citizen of South Korea.
The moment he realized that the Rothschild Fund was trying to swindle the Korean government, he felt a surge of duty to expose their vile tricks to the public.
Staring down at the envelope clutched tightly in his hands, Yu muttered,
"If this gets published, the whole country will be shaken to its core."
Lee shot back in a dry, matter-of-fact voice.
"With the scale of what they're pulling, there's no way this could stay hidden forever."
"True."
"And if it's bound to explode anyway, better that their masks come off before the Rothschild Fund bleeds us dry and makes its exit."
"You're right."
Yu gave a heavy nod, determination hardening his features.
"If we're going to get this article out tomorrow, I need to move fast."
Then, turning to Lee, he added,
"I'll buy you a drink later."
"Forget drinks. Just consider it a debt you owe me."
"Deal."
With a sly grin, Yu Jong-hoon replied, then opened the car door and stepped out.
Clutching the envelope tightly in one hand, he strode away at a brisk pace. From the rearview mirror, Lee Cheol-gyun silently watched him go.
Only once Yu's figure had completely disappeared from sight did Lee reach into his jacket and pull out a phone. He dialed a number.
After two or three rings, a deep, resonant voice answered—Seok-won's.
[Well handled.]
"Yes. Tomorrow's front page of the Geumseong Daily will be splashed with an exposé on the Rothschild Fund."
[You made sure everything was tied up properly? We don't want trouble later.]
Lifting his gaze, Lee glanced in the rearview mirror toward the direction Yu had vanished, then replied,
"He's a man who knows how to keep his mouth shut. You won't need to worry."
[Good work. We've pulled the trigger—let's just wait and see how events unfold.]
The call ended. Lee slipped the phone back into his inner pocket, started the engine, and drove the sedan out of the underground parking lot.
***
In the study of his mansion in South Hampton, Long Island, Brian Peterson, chairman of the Rothschild Fund, was on the phone with John Howell, the Fund's branch director in Korea.
[The creditors have informed us they'll accept the sale plan we proposed.]
Wearing a comfortable knit cardigan, Peterson's lips curled into a sly smile as he crossed the plush carpeted floor and walked toward a table by the wall.
"With so many Korean companies collapsing into bankruptcy, and the won once again spiking above 1,500 against the dollar, they really had no choice."
[That's right. And the strike at Manyoung Machinery last month also worked in our favor.]
Lifting the whiskey bottle from the table, Peterson twisted off the cap and poured the golden liquid halfway into a crystal glass. Setting the bottle back down, he gripped the glass in one hand and continued:
"Exactly. Without that strike, the creditors would've driven a hard bargain, trying to minimize debt write-offs. But thanks to the union doing us the favor of walking out, we were able to push things along much more smoothly."
[There were concerns that, with all the commotion, handling the Hansan Group might drag on. The creditors started feeling pressured to hurry and clear the trouble off their books.]
Returning to the elegant solid-wood desk positioned by the window, Peterson sat down in his chair.
"If the opposition had become too strong, I was ready to raise the sale price by an extra hundred million dollars. But this way works out perfectly."
[Indeed. Honestly, seeing how things unfolded, we might have been able to push the sale price even lower.]
"A shame, really. That would have meant extracting an additional commission."
The Rothschild Fund had set up covert contracts with foreign firms eager to acquire four key subsidiaries of the Hansan Group. Depending on how much of the group's debt was written off, the Fund would collect side commissions.
In other words, using public funds drawn from Korean taxpayers' money, the Fund had engineered a scheme where companies destined to fall into foreign hands would have their debts repaid—and secretly siphoned off the difference for itself.
Leaning back in his chair, Peterson took a sip of whiskey, savouring its aroma in his mouth.
"There won't be any obstacles from Chairman Lim Jong-myung, I trust? You settled things with him properly?"
[Of course. At first, he opposed the sale, but once I assured him that his personal holdings would be protected, he gave his word to cooperate.]
When the Hansan Group initially collapsed into crisis and was eventually placed under court receivership, Chairman Lim had publicly declared that if the creditors forgave part of the debt, he would step down from management altogether and give up all of his shares in the group.
But his secret dealings with the Rothschild Fund revealed the opposite—he was betraying his own words.
Even as the group splintered apart and sank, the captain himself, Lim Jong-myung, abandoned his employees and schemed to secure only his own fortune. At the thought, Peterson snorted with derision.
"In any case, we're not losing anything, so go ahead and push it through."
[Yes, sir.]
"Now that the debt write-off issue is settled, don't drag this out. Contact Lafarge in France, SunSage, the UBS Capital consortium—whoever's lined up to buy—and finalize the sale."
[Understood.]
"Oh, and didn't you say the government decided to inject public funds into Minguk Life, which recently went into court receivership, to normalize it before selling it off?"
[That's correct.]
Peterson's eyes glittered with greed as he spoke.
"Then see what you can do to arrange it so we handle the restructuring—just like with the Hansan Group."
[Yes, I'll take care of it.]
The call ended, and Chairman Peterson's face broke into a pleased smile at how smoothly everything in Korea was falling into place.
He drained the rest of the whiskey in his glass, savoring the subtle oak scent and the smooth warmth as it slid down his throat, heightening his satisfaction.
Setting the empty glass on the desk, Peterson idly spun the globe beside him. When it stopped, his finger pressed down firmly on Korea.
"Thanks to this fire sale happening in Korea, we're bound to have quite a bit of fun," he muttered with an upturned grin.