BONUS: BLOOD RUNS DEEP - Part IV

Seoul City Vice

 

 

 

Blood Runs Deep


Part IV


 

Taeyeon had been right.

It wasn’t even six the next evening when they found themselves herded into a little room off to the side of the main vestibule entrance. The officer on duty removed their handcuffs and told them to empty their pockets of all their possessions and put them neatly in the plastic trays provided. Seulgi looked at Irene and Irene just shrugged. The second officer behind the plastiglass took their trays and slotted them under his desk and buzzed them through without as much as a second glance in their direction. They were led through into the main hall, handcuffed again, between hollering rows of female inmates sat eating out of tin food trays at their tables. The guard took them to a cell at the far end of a quiet hall. Seulgi took a moment to take in everything around them, just in case.

‘In,’ he said.

‘Man of few words, huh?’ said Irene.

‘Just get in there.’

They stepped in and looked around. The walls were white plaster and bare. At the back of the room was a single narrow window inlaid so that they couldn’t reach it and it only afforded them the narrowest form of light during the day. A single lightbulb screwed tightly into the ceiling where they could not reach or touch it. There were two bunk beds slotted against the right-side wall and opposite a single desk and plastic lawnchair and a single shelf hanging two feet above for toiletries and other supplies. On the left side closer to the door was a single ceramic toilet and a roil of toiletpaper and no lid at all. Seulgi looked at it all in kind. Someone further down the corridor laughed at something.

‘You’ll need these,’ the guard said. He tossed them two sets of orange clothes, matching shirts and pants. Seulgi held them up and coughed.

‘What?’ he said.

‘What are we supposed to do with these?’

‘Get changed. Quickly.’

‘Here?’

He nodded at Irene. ‘Nothing either of you haven’t seen before, right?’

‘Do you mind turning around?’

He shrugged nonchalantly and turned his back while they changed quickly. They handed their clothes to him and he made a bored sweeping gesture at nothing in particular and said, ‘Mess is at seven every evening, lights out at nine. Showers are eight AM, breakfast half past. Gym time is nine AM for an hour, half an hour extra with privileges. Don’t about, yadda yadda. I’m sure you know the rest.’

Irene laughed.

‘What’s so funny?’

‘Did you just say mess?’

‘What?’

‘C’mon, man. We’re not in the army here. Just say dinner, y’know?’

‘Whatever. Any questions?’

Seulgi said nothing. She had a great many questions and even more irrelevant thoughts and found she could voice none of them. ‘Right,’ he said. He closed the heavy cell door behind him and folded down the flap so that all they could see of the outside world was the small plastic window hollowed into the door. They turned to each other. Irene pulled herself up to the top bunk and lay down with a great sigh. ‘Dibs on this one,’ she said.

‘How are you so calm?’

‘What? About what?’

‘About this. About all of ing this.’

‘You seem tetchy.’

‘This is it,’ Seulgi said. ‘This is the rest of our ing lives. I don’t even know what the charges are yet, but I’m sure it’s not going to be some light thing we get three months for.’

‘Relax.’

‘How about you start getting angry?’

‘I’ve been here before,’ Irene said with an air of nonchalance. ‘It’s not so bad. You get used to it after a while. Hell, I actually kinda missed it at times. The structure, at least. Know what I’m saying?’

‘Jesus Christ.’

‘Babe, you need to chill. It could’ve been a whole lot worse.’

‘How? How could this have possibly been any ing worse?’

‘Well, for starters, they could’ve split us up. We could’ve been in different cities.’

Seulgi thought about it for a minute. That much was right, at least.

‘Maybe it’s all part of Taeyeon’s sick mind to keep us together. To watch us go crazy together or some like that. Maybe she’s, like…an ultra sadist. I dunno. Was better in my head, as usual. And secondly, we could be dead. So…yeah.’

‘We were so close. So ing close.’

‘Babe. Babe, look at me.’

Seulgi did so. Irene’s face was the calming she needed if only for a brief moment. Even there in old makeup and smelling a day old and in her casual orange clothes she was perfect. ‘You’ll get used to it,’ she said. ‘Eventually. I mean, you’ll kinda have to. I’m betting we’re looking at thirty years or something. Maybe more. Maybe life. Maybelline.’

‘I wish you'd stop that.’

‘Hey, just trying to distract from the fact we're never getting out of this little room here.’

‘.’

‘Uh huh. But you know what? I don’t care. Well, okay…I do care. But as long as I’m with you, I don’t care too much. Well, I do care a lot, but not enough to go crazy. And if I do go crazy, at least I’ll go crazy with you. Poetic, right?’

Seulgi tried to smile and found it almost impossible.

‘Come sit down,’ Irene said. She climbed down off the top bunk and sat next to Seulgi on the bottom bed. ‘You wanna tell me how you’re really feeling?’

‘I did. That’s how I’m really feeling – like the ing world is ending around me.’

‘Around us.’

‘Sure.’

‘Thought you’d appreciate that a bit.’

Seulgi smiled a soft and tired smile. Irene scooted up the bed and lay half against the wall so that she could look at Seulgi better, slouched there like a troglodyte in her orange prison clothes. They were quiet for a long time. Then Irene said gently, ‘I think I fell in love with you the first time I saw you.’

‘What?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Where’s that come from?’

‘Dunno. Just felt like I’d say it, seeing as we’ve got a whole lot of time to waste now. Like…a whole lifetime’s worth. Figured I’d come out and spill the beans, since I’ve never been very good at opening up about my feelings. I’ve actually been quite terrible at it for the longest possible time.’

‘I know. I’m not much better.’

Irene laughed. It was a laugh at the back of , an exhalation without ever opening . ‘I was crazy about you from the beginning,’ she said, ‘and I’m not just saying that. I genuinely was. I just didn’t show it. At least, I don’t think I did. I’m kinda like a wild animal. I show my affection by just talking and talking and talking and never stopping. And a lot of teasing. Think I’ve mentioned something like this before.’

‘Something like this.’

‘Remember me talking about my ex?’

Seulgi nodded.

‘About how she tried to change me so much, and how that worked out for her. And for me. It rocked me. Rocked me like nothing else in my life. You mind if I get a bit deep on you for a change, babe?’

Seulgi smiled softly. ‘Go right ahead.’

‘Right.’ She shifted on the bed for comfort and continued. ‘I’ve been a bit of a -up my whole life, you know? Don’t talk. Don’t tell me otherwise. Just let me finish.’

‘Okay.’

‘Ever since I was a kid. I told you about my parents, and about how I decided to lash out and be rebellious and fell into a life of crime because of that.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Well, it was all true. Mostly. But it was because I was scared of myself from a young age. I dunno why. I guess I was scared of my uality, mostly. Or something like that. But I lashed out and ed everything up and continued ing everything up, and then I finally get into a relationship and I think everything’s looking up and I’m out of jail for a good year or eighteen months or so and then, bam. It all goes downhill. It might sound stupid, but when she tried to change me, when she did all the she did to try and get me to be more normal, or down to earth, or whatever the she wanted to model me as, it only made me feel horrible again. It confirmed to me that I really was a -up. That I was wrong in some way. That she was trying to fix me because there was something inside me that was thoroughly wrong and I was the only one who couldn’t see that.’

‘That’s not stupid at all.’

Irene smiled. She looked as if she might cry and it was alien to Seulgi. ‘And then,’ she said, ‘then you came along. Swept me off my feet.’

‘Really now.’

‘Not quite like that, of course. But I met you and you hated me, seriously hated me, and I annoyed you and annoyed you some more, and then annoyed you some more just for good measure, and you stuck by me and put up with me, and you know what? You never tried to change me. You never once did. You understood what I was, even if I wasn’t perfect. You might not have liked it, but as strange as it sounds, in all that time you got angry at me or flustered or whatever, I never once felt like I was wrong. I felt like less of a -up than I ever had before. And I loved you for that. , I still do. I love you, Seulgi.’

‘I love you too.’

‘Sorry if that sounded too melodramatic.’

‘It didn’t.’

‘Like I said, we’ve got a lot of time to kill now.’

‘Thank you for sharing that with me. I mean it.’

‘Yeah, well.’ Irene shrugged. ‘You might not get any more for a while.’

‘Sometimes I look at you and I can’t believe you’re real.’

At that Irene had to laugh. ‘That was far too cheesy,’ she said. ‘Even for you. You’ve been watching too many ty movies, I think.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Have you always been this bad at talking to girls?’

‘Yeah. Always.’

‘Good. That’s one of the things I like about you. Among many others, I’ll admit.’

Seulgi smiled. She shifted up the bed and pulled Irene in for a long and lovely kiss and brushed the hair away from her cheek. ‘I love you quite a lot,’ she said. ‘Quite a very lot.’

‘Me too.’

‘And if I’ve got to spend the rest of my life in a four-by-three cell, I can’t think of anyone I’d rather spend it with.’

Irene giggled against Seulgi’s lips. ‘Beautiful,’ she said. ‘You always know how to charm the pants off me.’

 

♣ ♣ ♣

 

They didn’t know what time it was the next evening when they heard commotion somewhere far along the corridor but they knew it was evening from the absence of window light. Seulgi looked at the clock on the wall opposite. It hadn’t been working when they’d first stepped into the room and it wasn’t working now. Irene leant over the side of her bunk from above and said, ‘What the was that?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Sounded like shouting.’

‘Well, yes.’

‘What do you think it was?’

‘A fight, maybe.’

They listened and waited. Not ten seconds later they heard the lights shutting down along the corridor. Seulgi pulled herself up and peered through the plastiglass door partition. The dark rolled slowly along the hall like a plague. Soon they were in a darkness so complete that standing there in the middle of the floor they couldn’t see each other five feet away.

‘Babe,’ Irene said. ‘Babe, what’s happening?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t like it.’

‘This never happened to me before, and I’ve spent a load of time behind bars.’

They stopped and listened again. There were footsteps and shouting and then more footsteps. In the dark they stood like unfortunate penitents awaiting an ultimate death. Seulgi peered back through the door. At the far end of the corridor a thin beam of pale light cut swathes out of the hall and disappeared and reappeared again. ‘There’s a light,’ she said. ‘Looks like a flashlight or something.’

‘Where?’

‘Far end. It’s coming closer.’

She watched it twenty metres away and then ten. The footsteps stopped. The flashlight went out and turned back on and she heard a muffled cough and the sound of something on the other side of the door. There were at least two figures she could barely make out, silhouettes in the night, dream vandals come for some unknown purpose. She heard one of them say Watch out, heard the cranking of metal and a clash on the floor.

‘Babe,’ Irene said, stepping forward. A moment later the door opened outward with an awful creak and was thrown free. They stood wincing against the cone of light like rats come up to surface. In front of them were three figures in black balaclavas. The one in the middle carried a military-issue MP5 with a slender suppressor and foldaway stock in one hand and the flashlight in the other.

‘Oh, thank god,’ the figure on the left said, a woman’s voice.

‘Wheein?’

She grabbed hold of the black mask and peeled it up away from her voice and smiled at Seulgi through laboured breaths.

‘What the are you doing here?’

‘What does it look like? Getting you out.’

‘What?’

‘Holy ,’ Irene said, laughing. ‘This is some . Even for you, this is some .’

Seulgi looked at the figure on the right of the trio carrying an enormous pair of bolt cutters in both hands like they were garden shears. She was tall and slim and her black hair fell loose out of her balaclava at the back. Seulgi squinted in the bright light. ‘Joy?’ she said.

Joy pulled the mask away and nodded and smiled curtly.

‘Why?’

‘These two said you needed some help.’

‘And you decided to break into a ing prison?’

‘Hey, what can I say? I like the adrenaline rush.’

‘You can say that again,’ the middle figure grumbled. Seulgi knew who it was before he had even removed his mask. She watched him try to pull it over his enormous head and fail spectacularly. So that he was stood there with it clinging to his forehead and stretching his skin like some grotesque caricature of a person, grey moustache and thin lips and all.

‘Sir,’ she said.

Hongki looked at her. ‘Your girlfriend’s right, Kang. This is some .’

‘How did you get in here?’

‘It’s a long, long ing story. Maybe I’ll tell you about it sometime. But now, we need to make like the wind and whistle.’

They looked at each other.

‘Or something,’ he muttered.

‘Come on,’ said Wheein. ‘He’s right. We need to go. Right now.’

‘Don’t need to tell me twice,’ Irene said. They followed the three of them back along the corridor, through the safety gates and back through the cafeteria and past the gym and through the vestibule where they had first come in. All the lights were still out. Most of the guards were nowhere to be seen but two of them lay facedown on the floor near reception, their hats knocked aside, ties messy and loose.

‘Oh ,’ Irene said. ‘Are they dead?’

‘Who?’ Hongki said, waving his MP5 around. ‘Oh, them? No, they’re alive. For now.’

‘What?’

‘Come on.’

Wheein led them out through the front and along the side of the parkinglot. The lights were already coming back on in the facility behind them. They sidled along small as they could possibly be, Wheein and Hongki at the front, Joy in the middle. At the front gates they lingered just long enough at the guardhouse to see the guard behind the glass screen unconscious on his swivelchair, a great big lipstick mark across the bottom half of his face. ‘What the happened to him?’ Irene asked.

Joy made a pout with her lips as they hurried along. ‘I kissed him,’ she said.

‘Nice. For fun, or?’

‘It’s laced with sedative. I kissed him and wiped it off afterwards. Wiped it off myself, I mean.’

‘Damn. Never underestimate a stripper.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Where are we going?’ Seulgi said. Wheein pointed to a beatendown grey Kia half a street away. The evening bled a mute purple and the last of the sun ran down the sky like crimson fireworks. Apart from the alarms going off in the prison behind them everything was eerily quiet and the five of them said little. The car looked fit for only four people but there was already a silhouette in the driver’s seat. Wheein and Joy stuffed themselves into the front passenger seat and Hongki climbed into the back beside Irene and Seulgi. He smelt of lime juice and pickles and Marlboro cigarettes. Seulgi took a moment to adjust herself to this strange new reality. She leant forward as far as she could and glanced up at the reflection in the driver-side sunvisor.

‘Jisoo?’

‘Hey,’ Jisoo said, a little shaken and serious.

‘What—

‘Am I doing here? Yeah, same reason as everyone else. Wheein called. Said you needed a little help.’

‘And you decided—’

‘To break you out of prison? Yeah, kinda. I’ll explain later. Or I’m sure someone will.’

Seulgi sat back again. Jisoo started the engine and turned to see if there was any traffic behind them and pulled out into the street. They were on the road less than five minutes before she said, ‘We’ve got less than ten.’

‘Before what?’ Irene said.

‘Before they’ll have tracked the plate of this car.’

‘You didn’t cut the CCTV?’

‘Are you kidding me?’

‘What?’

‘You think we’re superhuman or something? You know how much planning it took to get you out of here in the first place?’

‘Clearly not a lot, since it took you…what? Less than a day.’

Jisoo was quiet. As if to say: Yeah, point taken.

‘Where are we right now?’ Seulgi said. ‘And where are we going?’

‘Jamsil. And Amsa, respectively.’

‘Why?’

‘Less questions,’ Wheein said. She was sat with Joy awkwardly in her lap like an enormous child in the passenger seat. It was almost ten minutes exactly before Irene leant forward a slight and laughed at her.

‘You okay there?’ Irene said.

‘Not particularly.’

‘Thanks.’

‘For breaking you out of jail?’

‘Sure thing. We were looking at life, I think. Or near as makes no difference. Crazy.’

‘They’re onto us,’ Jisoo mumbled. ‘. I thought we’d have more time.’

‘What?’ Seulgi said. She tried to look back through the window.

‘Two cars back there. They’re quick.’

‘What do we do?’

‘Keep calm. We’ve got to time this perfectly, to the second.’

‘Time what? What’s going on?’

‘Everybody stay calm.’

‘You want to tell me what’s going on?’

Jisoo ignored her. They passed into a long tunnel in east Jamsil and the darkness was replaced by the wide flood of lights along the ceiling of the tunnel. Seulgi and Irene glanced at each other. Everyone else was dead silent. Jisoo drove as carefully as she could through the tunnel. Near the far end Seulgi caught sight of a white transit van with the back doors swung wide open and a makeshift ramp trailing sparks wildly along the road. Jisoo drove closer.

‘What in the world?’ Irene said.

Jisoo drove right up to the ramp and kept on going. They felt a wretched jolt and a second bump as the car caught on the ramp and pulled itself up in a cloud of tiresmoke and settled itself in the back of the van. ‘Now,’ Jisoo said. Before any of them had chance to react she flung the car door open and stepped out and began hauling up the ramp and closing the back doors of the van. They watched her and waited. The van drove out the far side of the tunnel and the two marked patrol cars went flying on by with their lights blaring and vanished somewhere in the greater world.

‘Jesus,’ Wheein said, ‘that was close.’

They scrambled out of the car one after the other.

‘We won’t have long,’ said Jisoo. ‘Maybe ten, fifteen minutes before they realise something’s up and start asking eye witnesses. Then all they have to do is crosscheck the licence plates.’

‘It’s a fake, isn’t it?’

‘Yeah. And I can switch them out once we stop. But that’ll only hold them another half a day, a day tops.’

‘This is ing insane,’ Irene said, laughing again. ‘I remember watching The Italian Job as a kid and thinking it was the most far-fetched thing I’d ever seen or ever would see, but no. This takes the ice cream cake.’

‘The what?’ Joy said.

‘The ice cream cake. You never had ice cream cake before?’

‘What the is ice cream cake?’

‘It’s— never mind.’

Seulgi ran a hand through her hair and closed her eyes. When she opened them they were all still there in front of her and it was all still real. Somehow. ‘Where are we?’ she said.

‘In Seongnae now,’ said Wheein. ‘Just outside Amsa. There’s a safehouse not twenty minutes up the road from here we can stop at for now.’

‘No, I mean, whose van is this?’

‘Hey, man,’ Wendy shouted from the driver’s seat up front. She gave a hazy little peace sign over her shoulder and waved to them.

‘Wendy?’

‘In the flesh, baby. Live and correct!’

‘How did you—’

‘I contacted her,’ Wheein said.

‘How?’

‘Couple of old tricks of mine. I know more than I let on sometimes.’

‘Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome. Don’t say I don’t ever do anything for you. I broke you out of ing prison, for crying out loud. That’s, like, ultimate girl code points.’

‘Yeah. Guess we’re even now.’

‘Even? You kidding me?’

‘Look,’ Irene said, ‘sorry to break up the whole parade , but does anyone wanna tell me what’s actually going on here?’

Wheein looked at her and grinned through ragged breaths. ‘I’ll tell you at the safehouse. You’re gonna want to be sitting down for this.’

 

♣ ♣ ♣

 

It was an old warehouse building with half of it cordoned off by old tape and empty boxes and appropriately cold as they arrived. They parked the van inside and Jisoo swapped out the plates and fiddled with something with Wendy while the others all sat on plastic chairs at the far end of the massive room. Wheein had established her own sort of office here. She had two whiteboards, one filled with polaroids of Taeyeon and other police officers and shadylooking guys in tuxedos all pinned up and strings linking them together and leads that read things like “Involved?” and “More research on this guy” and “GUILTY AS .” On the other whiteboard she had drawn a small stickwoman with an enormous round face and tiny eyes with an arrow pointing to it that said SMALL BRAIN SEULGI.

‘Thanks,’ Seulgi said.

‘You’re welcome.’

Wheein sorted through a sheaf of documents on the desk next to the whiteboards and grabbed a black marker pen. She stood in front of them like a teacher while they glanced at each other.

‘Okay,’ Irene said. ‘Now do you wanna tell us what’s going on?’

‘What would you like to know?’

‘How about, oh, I dunno…all of it?’

‘Okay.’ She paced about for a moment while Jisoo and Wendy came and sat at the back of the group.

‘Yay,’ Joy said. ‘Group presentation.’

‘First off, I’d like to apologise for the whole pretending to turn on you and shoot you dead and put you in bodybags thing.’

‘Yeah, thanks,’ Seulgi said.

‘But it had to be done. I had to be sure.’

‘Sure of what?’

‘I’ve been tracking Taeyeon for a long time, far longer than the six weeks she’s been in our department. I’m talking a year or so now. It first started when I was assigned to this small-time drug bust way back before any of the crazy Leeum happened. I remember I rounded up these two dealers and one of them mentioned something about someone on the force. I didn’t take much notice of it at the time, thought it was just something he said to make me paranoid, but it was this niggling thing in the back of my mind. And then I heard it again a couple months later. This guy I caught for smuggling a couple Russian AKs told me he’d got them from someone who’d gotten them from someone in our department. Anyway, long story short, I keep getting these little hints, like a ing breadcrumb trail of criminal , and I end up doing my own digging. And I find a lot of stuff I shouldn’t have ever found. I go deep into the rabbit lair.’

‘Rabbit hole,’ Irene said.

‘Whatever place rabbits live in, I’m in it.’

‘And you never said anything?’ Seulgi asked.

‘Of course not. Who’d believe me? And if there really was someone high up orchestrating a bunch of , and they heard about me snooping, what do ya think would happen to me?’ She made a slicing motion across . ‘So, I stay on the sidelines, in the background, until Taeyeon kicks Hongki out and takes over and starts running things properly. The first few days I thought nothing of it, thought she was just being strict, but then she started acting strange.’

‘Strange? Strange how?’

‘Started asking me questions about the both of you. Especially you, Seulgi.’

‘What sort of questions?’

‘How you were, where you liked to visit, where you lived. Real personal things. Now, I never gave her an answer, of course – I couldn’t give you up like that – but still. And she asked other stuff, too, really weird stuff. She asked me what I thought your biggest weaknesses were out in the field. Things like that. So, I do some more digging, and voila. I find the ing motherload. The absolute tippy top of it all. Now, brace yourself for this. This is where it gets a little bit complicated. You ready?’

Seulgi shrugged.

‘Okay, so. I did some digging where I shouldn’t have been, went undercover a bit. I got in contact with some of my, uh, let’s say, less than legal sources—’

‘Bit like Wendy?’ Irene said.

‘Guess so.’

‘Groovy,’ Wendy said. ‘I’m cool as a cucumber, man. Totally legal and above board.’

Wheein looked at her and smiled. ‘Anyway. I go digging around the bank transactions and rumours of a load of well-known Seoul crooks regarding a bunch of huge weapons and drug deals that have been going down recently, and I get one in particular that catches my attention. It was a bank transfer to the offshore account of one Choi Hyunmin.’

‘Never heard of him,’ Seulgi said.

‘No, I expect not. He’s a big-time weapons smuggler. One of the biggest. But you never dealt with him personally. The transfer was for ten billion won, there or thereabouts.’

‘So, you get the transaction accounts of a gunrunner? Accounts that show he’s been smuggling guns?’

‘Yeah, but here’s the kicker – Choi Hyunmin’s been locked up for eight months now. And here’s the double kicker – the officer that took him down?’

‘Taeyeon?’

‘Kim ing Taeyeon.’

‘So…’

‘So she’s been smuggling guns for billions of won under a fake name, using the offshore accounts of someone she’s already ing locked up. Can you believe the cajones of this gal?’

‘Big cajones,’ Wendy said. ‘Damn.’

‘Exactly. Massive ing cajones. I’m talking big ol’ donkey balls. But that’s not all. It gets a whole lot deeper than that.’

She looked at them and Seulgi glanced at Jisoo.

‘Don’t look at me,’ Jisoo said. ‘I’ve already heard this whole thing before.’

‘And you’re onboard?’

‘Would I be here if I wasn’t?’

Seulgi nodded. She motioned for Wheein to continue again.

‘Okay,’ Wheein said. ‘Hold onto your horses, because I’m gonna blow your ing mind. You’re seriously not gonna believe this.’

‘Go on.’

‘Now you’ve got me excited,’ Irene said.

Wheein paced about the whiteboards. For a moment she looked as crazy as Wendy, or Hongki. ‘I dig some extra digging a couple weeks ago when I was putting together a case file and everything and I got something extra juicy. I knew I needed that little bit extra to bring it all together, so I went snooping through her drawers when she was out of the office. She never even knew I was there. But I freaked out, panicked a bit. I only managed to get a couple blurry images of documents. I figured anything more and she’d sniff me out and boom, that’d be it. I’d be swimming with the dolphins.’

‘Fishes,’ Irene said.

‘Whatever water-based mammal, I'm swimming with em.’

‘So what were these images?’ Seulgi said.

‘Bank transaction documents, financial records and histories, like that. Blurry, like I said, but still decent enough to get a good look at.’

‘And?’

‘And so I did. One that stuck out to me more than any other. A number of huge transactions to one company in particular, and I’m talking real huge. I’m talking way, way, way more than any detective or head of department ever makes. These were billion-won transactions to a company called R196 1484.’

‘Means nothing to me.’

‘No, and it didn’t mean to me either. But then I did some research. You see, the R196 part is the country identifier code for privately held and registered companies in South Africa. So I did some more looking around. R196 1484 led me to directly to the MOI international code of a company called ANAMCO.’

‘ANAMCO?’

‘Yeah.’

Seulgi turned to Irene. ‘That’s the name I read on those scraps of paper in her office,’ she said.

‘Yeah,’ Wheein said, ‘right. That’s why I devised that whole plan for you to break out of the morgue and search her office. I just needed to be sure I’d seen it all correctly. Sorry about that, by the way.’

‘It’s okay. Go on.’

‘This ANAMCO, you ever heard of it?’

Seulgi and Irene shook their heads.

‘It’s a PMC based out of South Africa.’

‘What’s a PMC?’ Irene said.

‘A Private Military Contractor. Think your own private army, a bit like that. And this ANAMCO was - and is - a pretty big one. They ran security for warlords and diamond businesses like De Beers in the late nineties, when the diamond boom was at its height in Africa. I’m talking real blood conflict . Brutal massacres, glorified military raids, illegal mines. A couple war crimes here and there for good measure. And since the conflicts have died down they’ve moved to selling off their weapons to third-world countries and dictatorships at low costs, getting rid of their surplus. And Korea as well. Smuggling right across Asia, as far as Japan. Some real crazy .’

‘Jesus,’ Seulgi said. ‘And Taeyeon’s had business with these guys.’

‘Uh huh. She’s been paying them for arms and weapons, and then presumably shipping them around Korea and the eastern hemisphere, running her own little guns-for-profit business right out of this ing city, all while being one of the top dogs in Korea’s entire police force. It’s the most insane I’ve ever heard.’

‘She’s connected to a ing PMC.’

‘And it doesn’t stop there.’

‘What?’

Wheein paced again. ‘There was another company,’ she said. ‘I could only make it out barely in the pics I took. It was regular payments into her account from a company called Daniel Cross Solutions.’

‘Never heard of it.’

‘No, you wouldn’t have, because it’s not real.’

‘What?’

‘It’s a shell company, a front, a fraud. It exists only on paper. So, I did some more digging. Turns out it was set up by this guy.’ She bit the lid off her marker pen and hastily circled a hazy polaroid of a man pinned to the board. ‘This is Jun Kangho.’

‘I know that name,’ Seulgi said.

‘Yeah, you will do. He’s a real shady guy, been in and out of prison in the early-mid two thousands for a bunch of finance-related . Defrauding investors, refusing to pay capital, stuff like that, you name it. He was all over the news for, like, years. Then he got out, supposedly dropped off the map, and got clean. Only he didn't get clean. Of course he didn't.’

‘So, on top of being in bed with a South African PMC, she’s taking regular money from a paper company set up by this guy? This shady businessman?’

‘Uh huh. But here’s the real, real kicker – you ready for this?’

Seulgi nodded. Wheein unpinned the photo from the whiteboard and held it up in front of her face and pointed to the tattoo on his neck. ‘There,’ she said.

‘Holy . It’s—’

‘A white lotus,’ Irene said, laughing in disbelief.

‘You’re ing right it’s a white lotus,’ Wheein said.

Seulgi looked at it again. ‘This guy is White Lotus?’

‘That he is. And you know what I found in my many nights of digging? The accounts he pays out from are registered with a bank in, well…guess the country.’

Seulgi mouthed it and Wheein mouthed it with her. ‘Switzerland,’ she said. ‘So, putting two and two together, why do you think he gets his money cleared in Swiss banks before handing it off in massive transfers to Taeyeon?’

‘Because he favours the low tax rates?’ Irene said.

‘Could be. But I’m willing to bet it’s because he’s got a hand in a lot of international, cross-border business over there. And if he’s a part of it, Taeyeon’s a part of it.’

‘Switzerland,’ Hongki grumbled.

‘Holy ,’ said Seulgi. She looked at the photo again. ‘The Cube…the guy on that yacht we stopped…the one they were going to sell the painting to...you mean—’

‘Uh huh,’ Wheein said. She had a glimmer of mad genius in her eyes that was startling.

‘All this time.’

‘All this time, baby. She stood to gain a hell of a lot of goodwill from the sale of that painting, probably a load of money from the sale of it, too. This wasn’t just weapons and PMCs in South Africa. This was European artwork sales and superyachts and all that business. She was so close to the biggest fraud ever. And then a certain duo come along and it all up for her. Two hundred billion won down the drain. The greatest theft in modern human history thwarted just like that, right from under her nose. It’s no wonder she wanted you offed so badly.’

‘Jesus Christ. It’s her. She’s behind it all.’

‘Woah,’ Irene said, laughing again. ‘You mean to tell me that all this time, all along, this whole breadcrumb trail of madness leads back to her?’

‘Precisely,’ Wheein said. ‘And the only people that know about it are in this very room, right now. At least until all the evidence I emailed off to the agencies around Korea gets picked up and read. This goes deep. Very deep. So deep that I firmly believe we can no longer trust anyone outside of our little group. Not a single soul. Not even the rookies, wherever they are right now. If this gets out before anyone does anything, we’re ed. She'll be hunting me down, and probably hunting sir down, and certainly hunting you two down. So, like I said, if this leaves this room, we're ed.’

‘We’re probably ed anyway,’ Jisoo said.

‘Goddamn,’ said Hongki. ‘I need a cigarette. A real one this time.’

‘Sorry about your job, sir,’ Wheein said.

‘Yeah, yeah. happens. Life has its ups and downs. One day you’re eating caviar from a gold plate and the next you’re swallowing slop in a prison yard. You know how it goes.’

‘Uh huh.’

‘You put all this together yourself?’ Seulgi said.

‘Yeah,’ said Wheein.

‘On your own?’

‘Sometimes it pays to pretend to be dumb as .’

‘And lazy?’

‘Well, the laziness is real. Kinda. I really do get bored easily. And I guess this is occasionally the product of my boredom.’

Seulgi glanced at the photo again. ‘What we do now?’ she asked.

Wheein took it back from her and tossed it on the desk. ‘There’s only one thing we can do,’ she said.

‘What’s that?’

She circled the photo of Taeyeon on the board and then circled it again and continued to circle it until there was nothing left of her but the black squiggles across her distorted face. ‘We do our ing job,’ she said.

‘Uh, no,’ Irene said. ‘Not my job.’

‘Nor mine,’ said Wendy from the back. When they looked at her she had an unlit joint in one hand and a 1968 Zippo lighter in the other with a small four-leaf sticker on it that read GOOD MORNIN’ VIETNAM.

Joy shifted in her seat. ‘Would now be the time to point out that it isn’t my job either?’

‘Why are you here?’ Seulgi said. ‘I mean, everyone else has a reason. Even Jisoo. But you…you didn’t have to get involved in this at all. You could’ve easily said no.’

‘I told you, I like the adrenaline rush. And you know what? Contrary to what you might think, I kind of like you, Seulgi. And I like your girlfriend even more.’

Irene winked at her from behind Seulgi’s back.

‘So,’ Jisoo said, ‘all that’s left is to figure out how we’re going to infiltrate the police department, fight our way up to the Detective Superintendent without dying, and then…what, exactly? Take her alive? Kill her? What?’

‘If killing her is what it takes to get my job back,’ Hongki said, and trailed off almost immediately.

‘One thing,’ Irene said. ‘You forgot the part where she has intimate ties with a foreign private military and access to the largest and most active crime syndicate in all of Korea, and the resources of Seoul’s entire police force at her instant disposal.’

‘Yeah, that too,’ Jisoo said.

‘So, another average day at the office for Mrs Johnson over here.’

‘Mrs Johnson? What?’

‘Ignore her,’ Seulgi said, blushing a slight.

‘Who the is Mrs Johnson?’ said Hongki.

‘Please, sir. Just ignore her.’

‘Like out of Miami Vice,’ said Irene with a smirk. They all looked at her blankly. ‘You know…Don Johnson, Miami Vice?’

‘Never heard of him,’ Jisoo said.

‘Nor me,’ said Joy.

Irene laughed again. ‘Damn. Sorry, babe. Seems like you’re a bit behind the times.’

‘I don’t mean to rush you,’ Wheein said, ‘but we’ve got a job to be doing.’

‘And how do you propose we do that?’

‘Same way we always do, I guess. Just wing it.’

‘Great.’

‘We go in there fighting,’ Hongki said. He stood and kicked his chair back and looked at each of them. ‘We go out guns blazing, like real ing patriots. Like the heroes of old. If we go down, then by God, we’ll take ten men each with us. We’ll fight with guns, and when our guns run out, we’ll beat them with the barrels, and when the barrels break, we’ll go at it with knives, and when the knives get dulled with the blood of our enemies, we’ll bite and kick and gnaw, and when our teeth have been filed down and our arms are heavy and our feet lumpen and leady and useless, we’ll headbutt them, and when we’ve got concussions and brain bleeds, then by God, we’ll use our tongues, and our eyes, and whatever else at our disposal. Know this – we won’t go out without a fight. This is our Independence Day. Mark my words. This is where tyranny ends, and freedom begins.’

The room fell very silent. Hongki glanced at them again in turn.

‘Very good, sir,’ said Wheein.

‘Kang, stand up.’

Seulgi looked about. When it was clear she was going to get no help she stood reluctantly.

‘Are you with me?’

‘Uh, yes, sir. I guess I am.’

‘That’s good enough for me. Detective Kim?’

Jisoo gave an amused half-hearted salute from the right of the group.

‘Me too, chief,’ Irene said.

Hongki glared at Joy.

‘Yeah,’ Joy said, ‘ it. Whatever. I’m down.’

‘Good. That’s what I like to hear, soldiers.’

‘Soldiers?’

‘Well then,’ Wheein said. ‘Now we go to work.’

‘Damn, man,’ said Wendy from the back. She appeared and disappeared amid the cloud of weed smoke like some potent sage from a vision. ‘This is about to be the Ronald Reagan to end all Ronald Reagans.’

‘You’re damn right it is,’ Irene said.

‘What do we do about weapons?’ Seulgi asked.

‘Well, we’ve got one there. That’s a start.’

Hongki waved his MP5 around. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘This is a replica.’

‘What?’

‘A replica.’

‘It’s a fake, you mean.’

‘I bought it on eBay. I thought it would look menacing and rakish.’

‘Well,’ Seulgi said. ‘That dramatically drops the effectiveness of our unit.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Irene. ‘I’ve got a friend who can help us out.’

‘Wheein said no one outside this room can know.’

‘She’s safe. I can trust her. Moderately so.’

‘Right then. Whatever. So, now what?’

‘Cry havoc and let slip the hogs of war.’

‘You mean dogs of war.’

‘Whatever small farm animal of war, babe. God, why do you always have to be so pedantic about this ? Seriously. It’s such a turn off.’

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TEZMiSo
400 upvotes!!! Crazy. How did we ever get here :)

Comments

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k4a6n9g7
#1
Chapter 8: This chap is so fun to read hahahahahaha
I can literally hear their exchanges on Whocs Hoo, Yoo and Watt hahahaha
karinna11 #2
Chapter 23: Super late to the party but that was such a good “ending” omg
railtracer08
358 streak #3
Chapter 36: Bat insane was a massive understatement 😂
jeulgi
#4
Chapter 51: finally finished the story after a week, whoo, congratulations author and good job for creating such a wonderful story, lol this comment is boring like seulgi's character, i just can't describe it, I'm loss for words. anyways, it's been a while since I've read a story with a lot of number of words, and by the time being, I'm determined to finish the story because it's exciting every chapter, might as well read atleast 5 chapters a day despite my schoolworks, anyway for the second time congratulations again and continue doing what you love, you dig? i dig!
iana013
#5
Chapter 8: this chapter makes me dizzy 🥴
jeulgi
#6
Chapter 45: oh Wheein what happened
Jensoo4everlove #7
Chapter 24: Damn I love this fic
Soshi1590
#8
Chapter 30: Grats on the promo!
jeulgi
#9
Chapter 8: hahhaha this is so funny🤣 can't help to laugh
jeulgi
#10
Chapter 5: the tension😰