Joo Yun-ha lightly tapped the table with his fingers.
"Headquarters has already frozen the funding. They have even secured the ledgers documenting your embezzlement and are preparing to have you detained for investigation. You do not have much time to think."
"S-shut up! Why should I hand over a company with a patent worth trillions of won for a mere fifty billion?!"
"You misunderstand. The fifty billion is not the price of the patent. It is the 'price of your life.'"
"……What?"
Executive Director Hwang's eyes darted wildly, unable to settle on anything.
"If we offer to assume the pharmaceutical company's debts in their entirety. Taeseong headquarters will welcome the opportunity to shed its bad debts with open arms. The records of your embezzlement and the allegations of criminal breach of trust will be wiped clean along with that money."
Joo took a crisp check from his bag and slid it across the table.
[Cashier's Check: 10,000,000,000 won (10 billion won)]
"And this is a small 'token of appreciation' for you. You have worked yourself to the bone. Surely you cannot leave empty-handed."
"One, ten, a hundred, a thousand…… Ten billion?"
Hwang's pupils quivered as though in spasm.
As though refinancing the fifty billion won were not enough, they were offering another ten billion in cash for me.
"Sir, it is a trap! How did they discover those secrets? How could they arrange an acquisition of this scale so easily……!"
Attorney Kim urgently tried to dissuade him.
But Joo cut in with a cold smile.
"Before coming to your office, I already obtained the figurehead CEO's signature and proxies authorizing us to exercise the board's voting rights. Oh, and headquarters' RD has given us a firm assurance that it will look favorably on debt relief through a 'sale to a third party.'"
Joo leaned back comfortably on the sofa, inwardly marveling.
'Chairman Baek. You really are ruthless.'
Just an hour earlier, before Joo entered the executive director's office, a storm had already swept through the president's office at Taeseong Pharmaceuticals.
The figurehead CEO, who had done little more than occupy the chair like a scarecrow, was already in a daze.
Baek Do-jin had utterly cowed him by brandishing a ‘Special Audit Notice’ bearing the official seal of headquarters' RD.
“Go to prison, or delegate full authority and give yourself a way out. Make your choice.”
The pressure was chilling. Having spent his entire life as a yes-man, the figurehead CEO tearfully signed the surrender document (power of attorney) to survive.
“What? Never mind the rest…… Headquarters' R-RD is considering a sale? That is impossible!”
“Do not misunderstand, sir. The RD is protecting ‘Taeseong,’ not ‘Hwang Gi-cheol.’ It is cutting off rotten limbs. Why would it refuse foreign investors who offer to take all that filth off its hands?”
It was a meticulously calculated bluff.
Headquarters did not yet know Rubicon's true nature.
But from inside the RD, Baek Do-jin was already steering the ‘Feasibility Report on the Sale of Taeseong Pharmaceuticals’ toward a favorable conclusion.
Using that information, Joo had added a spoonful of lies and demolished Hwang's defenses.
‘Now he has swallowed the hook completely.’
Joo watched Hwang's hand tremble around the fountain pen.
In this elaborate performance Baek Do-jin had devised, Joo immersed himself completely in the role of ‘savior.’
SCRITCH, SCRATCH—.
‘Fifty billion in debt repaid, and ten billion going straight into my pocket…….’
Hwang scrawled his signature across the contract, convincing himself that this was his lifeline.
The document transferred management control and every share in Taeseong Pharmaceuticals to Rubicon Partners.
Attorney Kim urgently tried to stop him, but Hwang raised a hand to silence the lawyer.
“An excellent decision, sir.”
“We will immediately transfer the fifty billion won owed to headquarters. As promised, the ten billion will go to your overseas account. You may rest easy now. Thank you for all your hard work.”
Joo offered a courteous bow and left the office.
Attorney Kim hurried after him, trying to add something, but it was already over.
DING-.
The fax machine on the desk chimed and printed a confirmation in English.
It concerned the account Hwang had opened under a borrowed name in Hong Kong.
The bank officially certified that US dollars worth exactly ten billion won had been deposited there.
"Ha…… Hahaha! Ahahahaha!!"
His manic laughter erupted through the silent office.
"Yes, taking the patent would have been better……. But this is enough. The prosecutors won't come calling, and with this money, I can live in luxury for the rest of my life!"
He clenched his fists and shouted into the air.
"I survived! The company is about to default, and the whole country is in an uproar over the IMF! But I've got ten billion in cash in my pocket!"
With that, he finished justifying everything to himself.
Just then, Attorney Kim returned to the office, looking despondent.
"Attorney Kim! Don't just stand there like an idiot. Have the car brought around!"
"S-sir. Where are you going……?"
"Where do you think? I'm getting out of this damned powder keg. We're going to Gimpo Airport! I'll give you a share too."
He opened the safe and swept his passport and emergency bundles of dollars into his bag.
He would leave the country now.
All he had to do was enjoy the rest of his life like a king somewhere no one could find him.
"Hahaha! Let's go!"
He licked his lips greedily and left the office.
***
A few hours later, in the VIP lounge reserved for first-class passengers at Gimpo International Airport.
"Sir, here is the Dom Pérignon you ordered."
"Good work. Leave the glass."
A lounge attendant in a neat uniform poured the premium champagne and withdrew.
Hwang reclined on a soft leather sofa and gazed leisurely at the runway outside.
The gold Rolex on his wrist gleamed beneath the lounge lights.
'The plane will take off soon. Now I am starting a new life.'
An unpleasant smile curved his lips as he raised his champagne glass.
"Are you Mr. Hwang Gi-cheol?"
The voice was suddenly there, cold and flat.
He frowned and turned.
Three burly men in black suits blocked the lounge entrance, looking down at him.
Small badges were pinned to the left sides of their chests. They were not ordinary airport security guards.
"Who are you? This lounge is for first-class passengers only! Who gave you the right to barge……!"
"Investigator Lee Hyeok-jun, Special Investigations Division, Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office."
The man took a blue warrant from his inside pocket and held it right before Hwang's eyes.
"Mr. Hwang Gi-cheol. A warrant has been issued for your arrest on charges of embezzling research funds from Taeseong Pharmaceuticals' Second Research Institute, criminal breach of trust, and illicit transfer of assets abroad. You must come with us immediately."
"Wh-what……? Arrest?"
The champagne glass slipped from his hand.
CRASH-!
With a sharp shattering sound, the premium champagne soaked into the carpet, leaving a stain.
"N-now, listen! You have made a terrible mistake. I have just legally sold all my equity and management control to a foreign fund called Rubicon Partners! My embezzlement? Rubicon agreed to take responsibility for all of……!"
"Rubicon Partners? I have no idea who they are."
The investigator cut him off, his face icy.
"The criminal complaint we received was filed directly by 'Taeseong Group's Restructuring Division' this morning. Along with complete copies of the ledgers showing how you siphoned off research funds over the years and laundered them through a Hong Kong shell company."
"The R-RD……?"
In that instant, Hwang's heart plunged with a sickening thud.
"Th-that is impossible! The debt has all been repaid! Rubicon must have sent fifty billion to headquarters, so why are you coming after me now?!"
"Repaying the company's debts is one thing. Your personal embezzlement is another. Does a corporate merger or acquisition pardon your personal crimes?"
The investigator's rebuke wiped Hwang's mind blank.
Only then did he realize.
Nowhere in the contract, not in a single clause, was there any promise to 'cover up Hwang Gi-cheol's criminal charges.'
He had merely fallen for Joo's sweet deception.
While shedding the company's bad debts, the RD had immediately handed the ledgers to the prosecutors to sever him completely: the embezzling tail.
"N-no……. My plane! I have to get on that plane right……!"
He lurched to his feet as though seized by a fit and tried to grab his bag.
But the investigators were faster. They roughly wrenched his arms behind him and snapped cold handcuffs around his wrists.
CLICK-.
"Let go! Let go, you bastards! Do you know who I am?! I'm the Taeseong Group chairman's younger second cousin! I've got ten billion in cash in my account right now! I'll bring in every lawyer from the country's best law firms, so let me go!"
Forced to his knees, he howled like a beast.
The investigator looked down at him as though he were a pitiful insect and delivered the final blow.
"Oh, you mean the account you opened under a borrowed name in Hong Kong?"
"Yes! That money could pay a hundred salaried men like you for the rest of your lives……!"
"That account has just been frozen in full under the Act on the Concealment of Criminal Proceeds and Prevention of Money Laundering."
"……What?"
"It means the money will be treated as clear 'criminal proceeds' obtained through the sale of an embezzler's shareholdings, confiscated in full, and paid into the national treasury."
BOOM-.
Hwang's pupils convulsed wildly.
"A-ahhh…… AAAAAAH!!"
His terrible scream, the cry of a man who had lost everything, shook the VIP lounge.
***
In the penthouse at Y Hotel in Yongsan.
"Chairman, may I ask you something?"
"Go ahead."
"About the ten billion won we gave Hwang Gi-cheol. Even if it was meant to deceive him, was that not too large a sum when it would soon be frozen? Refinancing the fifty billion alone should have been enough……."
"CEO Joo. To catch a rat, the cheese must be rich enough. The fifty billion was for repaying the debt to headquarters. It was not Hwang Gi-cheol's personal money."
"Only when ten billion in cash is placed right before his eyes, close enough to touch, will a man like him lose his reason and lunge for it. And the moment that ten billion is deposited, he ceases to be merely an incompetent executive and becomes a 'money launderer dealing in enormous sums.' It becomes the perfect legal evidence with which to take his head."
Joo swallowed, as though a chill had run through him.
"It is a very modest 'guillotine rental fee' for taking Hwang Gi-cheol's head."
He nodded and turned to the next document.
"Then all that remains is the report to headquarters. How will you explain an acquisition of this scale as a new employee?"
A cold smile touched my lips.
"There is no need for an explanation. The report already has a title."
[Plan to Recover Taeseong Pharmaceuticals' Non-Performing Loans in Full and Offset Losses Through a Sale to a Third Party]
"Taeseong Pharmaceuticals is waste that must be disposed of at once. But if a foreign fund suddenly appeared and said, 'We will buy that waste for fifty billion won,' what would they say?"
"They would naturally…… consider it a windfall."
"Exactly. As the RD employee responsible, I will report that 'by a stroke of luck, I hooked a foreign fund that needed to launder money and completely cleared headquarters of its bad debts.'"
'The golden goose called Taeseong Pharmaceuticals is already in my hands.'