BANG—!
The heavy doors of Gyehyeonjae closed without mercy.
It was the sanctuary in Hannam-dong from which every divine decree governing South Korea's business world was issued.
The three siblings, expelled from it and cast onto the cold stone ground, looked more wretched than livestock outside a slaughterhouse.
"Does this make any sense? After everything we've done to get here! He's throwing us out over a few subcontractors?!"
Choi Tae-young shouted at the closed doors, his eyes bloodshot.
No answer came.
Only December's cutting wind lashed his expensive cashmere coat without mercy.
"Shut up, brother. You're embarrassing yourself."
"What? You little bastard!"
Choi Kang-min tore his crooked tie loose and spat the words out through clenched teeth.
It was the first time in his life he had experienced being 'stripped of power.'
Primal terror and murderous intent tangled in his eyes.
"Are you and Tae-young just going to leave like this?! What am I supposed to do if all my cards are frozen tomorrow? Dad can't really have abandoned us!"
Choi Seo-yun screamed hysterically and sank onto the cold ground.
***
At the same time, in the Strategic Planning Office at Taeseong Group headquarters, the office was as silent as a vacuum.
The stillness was so suffocating that no one dared make even the faintest keyboard click.
The unprecedented news from Hannam-dong, 'All Three Siblings Dismissed from Their Posts,' had burned through the entire office, leaving everyone white with shock.
Department Head Park, whose shin Director Oh had kicked, had locked himself away and not shown his face.
Manager Oh, who had lost his entire fortune in stocks, stared blankly at the ceiling, while my mentor, Assistant Manager Lee, silently watched everyone else's reactions as he packed his bag.
At the very center of that immense whirlpool of panic, I tidied my desk with the utmost ease and leisure.
BZZT—.
The pager in my trouser pocket vibrated briefly.
A number appeared on its display.
[02-749-XXXX]
'Hmm. Who is that?'
The moment the workday ended, I put on my coat and stood up.
Jeong Min-jae, who had joined with me, looked at me with a vacant expression, but I did not bother speaking to him.
"Please excuse me. I will be leaving first."
With that courteous farewell, I left the Strategic Planning Office.
After crossing the lobby and passing through the revolving doors, Yeouido's biting wind engulfed me.
The office workers walking along the streets had visibly slumped shoulders.
Fear that the country had collapsed, and despair at not knowing whether they would survive tomorrow, weighed on the entire city.
I turned up my collar and headed for a nearby public telephone booth.
I lifted the receiver and dialed the number on my pager.
Someone answered after only a few rings.
"Ah, you called. I have been waiting."
It was Joo Yun-ha's voice.
"Where is this number from?"
"The five-star Y Hotel in Yongsan."
"Can we meet today?"
"Of course. Come to the penthouse on the top floor of Y Hotel. I will let the lobby know in advance."
"Understood. I will meet you there."
I hung up and left the booth.
Leaving behind the red market-crash displays blazing above Yeouido's skyscrapers,
I made for Y Hotel, Rubicon Partners' first base camp.
***
The five-star Y Hotel towered over central Yongsan.
When I took the private elevator up to the penthouse, heavy mahogany doors opened, spilling out brilliant chandelier light.
"Welcome, Chairman!"
"It has been a while. Thank you for your hard work. By the way, what is this place?"
"We cannot keep attending to you through public telephones on the street. I have completely sealed off outside access and installed two layers of anti-eavesdropping equipment."
I tossed my coat aside and sank deep into the Italian leather sofa in the middle of the living room.
Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, Yongsan's dazzling nightscape spread beneath my feet.
"Now, report on the important matters first."
"Yes, sir. As instructed, I contacted the foreign IB branch heads. Our partner is 'M Investment.'"
"M Investment. How did they respond?"
At my question, Joo Yun-ha swallowed hard. He offered me the thickest folder on the table.
"They swallowed the bait completely. The first-priority mortgage liens on Jinsan Construction's prime Gangnam sites, and the cash dollars we put up as margin—the moment they saw those, their eyes lit up."
During the IMF crisis of 1997, foreign investment banks (IB) were packs of starving jackals flocking to swallow the bleeding Korean market at a pittance.
To them, solid tangible collateral in Gangnam and cash dollars were a more perfect guarantee of credit than any document.
"I pushed the head-office underwriters to raise the leverage ratio to its maximum. The credit limit (Credit Line) finally approved for Rubicon Partners by Wall Street's M Investment is……."
His trembling finger touched the final amount on the document.
"One hundred million dollars. At the current exchange rate, roughly two hundred billion won in ammunition is now loaded."
Two hundred billion.
With that, 'Rubicon Partners,' the phantom company established in a tax haven, had acquired overwhelming, legitimate financial power whose source no one could question.
"Excellent."
I slowly lifted the crystal glass of whiskey he had poured in advance and smiled coldly.
His face flushed, Joo Yun-ha pulled the cloth from a large whiteboard covering one wall of the penthouse.
Drawn densely across it like a pyramid was the immense control structure of South Korea's largest conglomerate, Taeseong Group.
"Hmm. What is this?"
"After you expressed your intention to hunt Taeseong, I put it together separately."
"CEO Joo, you are quite thorough in your preparations."
"Haha, thank you. Well, you know better than I do, but…… Taeseong's veins are far deeper and more intricately tangled than I expected."
His pointer moved constantly across the whiteboard.
"Taeseong Group currently has forty affiliates. Actual control rests with the Strategic Planning Office and the Chairman's Office at group headquarters."
The pointer tapped the apex of the control structure.
"First, the construction and manufacturing arm. Centered on Taeseong Construction, Taeseong Heavy Industries, Taeseong Engineering, Taeseong Development, Taeseong Shipbuilding, and Taeseong Machinery…… the electronics affiliates—Taeseong Electronics, Taeseong Semiconductor, Taeseong Information Systems, Taeseong Telecommunications, Taeseong Display, and Taeseong Electric—are bound together as one bloc."
His voice grew stronger.
"Retail and services are handled by Taeseong Department Store, Taeseong Distribution, Taeseong Hotel, Taeseong Logistics, Taeseong Tourism, and Taeseong Home Shopping. In finance, Taeseong Bank, Taeseong Securities, Taeseong Life Insurance, Taeseong Card, Taeseong Capital, Taeseong Investment Trust, Taeseong Leasing, and Taeseong Fire Insurance— eight companies in all—hold the cash lifelines."
The pointer, which had been moving at a breathless pace, crossed the center of the board again.
"Then Taeseong Petrochemicals, Taeseong Trading, Taeseong Motors, Taeseong Aviation, Taeseong Textiles, Taeseong Metals, and Taeseong Resources support the backbone. Finally, Taeseong Foods, Taeseong Pharmaceuticals, Taeseong Cultural Foundation, Taeseong Sports, Taeseong Media, and Taeseong Advertising form the outer perimeter."
He paused to catch his breath, then pointed to the very bottom of the chart.
There sat 'Taeseong Asset Management,' the poisonous mushroom I had planted to ensnare the three siblings, looking grotesquely out of place.
"All forty of these affiliates move in perfect unison at a single command from the Chairman's Office at headquarters."
The lineup of a vast empire comprising no fewer than forty affiliates.
It was a monstrous organizational chart born of a conglomerate's endless greed, its tentacle-like expansion seizing every artery of South Korea's economy.
Expressionlessly, I stared at the name 'Choi Man-ho' sitting at the apex of that enormous pyramid.
"Chairman! With two hundred billion won in ammunition, we could even put a dent in Taeseong Group's main stronghold!"
"Calm down, CEO Joo."
I set the whiskey glass on the table and coldly dampened his excitement.
"Eat too quickly, and you get indigestion. First, finalize the hundred-million-dollar leverage setup and settle all outstanding matters concerning Jinsan Construction's NPLs."
"Ah……. Yes! Of course. But we cannot wait forever with such enormous funds at hand……."
"I am not telling you to wait. I am telling you to sharpen the knife further for a flawless slaughter."
I rose from the sofa and approached the large whiteboard.
The empire's organizational chart sprawled across it.
I slowly traced my finger over the names of the non-core affiliates at the outermost edges, where funding was weakest.
"In every one of those forty affiliates, rotten vested interests lie coiled, fattened on Taeseong's blood."
"……!"
"As soon as the current setup is complete, we will devour them one by one, starting with those outer affiliates whose funding has dried up the most."
I picked up a board marker and drew a red X across the name of the affiliate in the farthest corner.
"We will break the weakest links, crush the vested interests inside them, and push toward the core, conquering one stronghold after another. That is our scenario."
***
Several days later, at Gyehyeonjae (Hall of Worthy Succession) in Hannam-dong, the study lay silent, only days after the three siblings had been miserably expelled.
In the deep darkness, Chairman Choi Man-ho, Taeseong Group's absolute ruler, adjusted his grip on the heavy receiver.
"Senior Secretary. If Taeseong falls, half this country's subcontractors will be thrown onto the streets. Can the Blue House handle the riots?"
His voice bearing down on the other end of the line was low, but its weight was chillingly overwhelming.
There was no trace of the old father who had raged at his children.
Only the eyes of a cold, merciless giant gleamed in the darkness, a man who had spent decades wading through the mire of collusion between politics and business to build South Korea's largest conglomerate.
"Those bailout dollars the government is holding. I will give you a justification for channeling them to Taeseong somehow. Take measures first thing tomorrow morning to give us room to breathe. Do you understand what I mean?"
After forcing a firm commitment from the other party, Chairman Choi Man-ho ended the call without waiting.
As he breathed harshly, Director Oh Se-dong, who had been waiting behind him like a shadow, quietly approached.
"Director."
"Yes, Chairman."
"Do you also consider the trap of joint and several guarantees those idiots tangled together fatal?"
Director Oh answered without the slightest hesitation.
"……At present, yes, sir. The links must be physically and forcibly severed to prevent Construction's bad debts from spreading to core affiliates such as Electronics and the department store."
The chairman clicked his tongue briefly. Looking at the bare winter trees outside, he spoke without compassion.
"Establish a 'Restructuring Division' under Strategic Planning, effective tomorrow. You will head it yourself."
"A Restructuring Division, sir?"
"Yes. We will sacrifice flesh to seize bone."
There was not the slightest hesitation in his voice, even though he was pronouncing a cruel death sentence on extensions of himself that he had nurtured for decades.
"Throw the non-core affiliates, those peripheral tails whose funding has dried up, into court receivership without mercy. Even if we have to cut off our tails and bleed, we will protect the sound core affiliates that form Taeseong's heart, no matter what."
"But, Chairman. If you abandon even healthy affiliates overnight, the shock to the market……."
"That is none of my concern!"
His icy roar cut through the study.
"Do not worry about the scraps that fall away in the process, whether the creditors tear them apart or hungry foreign capital scoops them up. As long as the main body of the group survives, we can simply take them back later."
Director Oh Se-dong bowed deeply.
"I will remember, Chairman."