#177

The the man who was supposed to meet Kwon Yong-joon had vanished completely.

While Tae-heun was quietly moving to meet the Man, someone from Prosecutor Jeong’s side urgently visited the reservoir. Their appearance was so conspicuous that anyone nearby would have noticed. If there had been an enemy, they would have been caught 100%.

Prosecutor Jeong would never have allowed such a thing. No matter what, he would have moved Lee Seon-jae, the VIP of this operation, to the Safe house before doing anything else. That meant Prosecutor Jeong was in a situation where he couldn’t give orders.

Prosecutor Jeong came down to Gimje to meet Yoon Ki-beom and was caught by Il-gwang.

Someone whispered that.

From the beginning, Prosecutor Jeong was not supposed to appear in Gimje. But he broke that promise. Moreover, he came down secretly without informing the investigators he had urgently dispatched to the reservoir.

Jeong Jae-jin and Yoon Ki-beom met.

Where?

And disappeared.

Where to?

‘Why’ or ‘how’ didn’t matter.

Because no matter the reason or the method, the fact remained that Jeong Jae-jin had intercepted the man in the middle. Without Tae-heun’s permission, without a single word to Tae-heun.

Jeong Jae-jin, you son of a bitch.

Tae-heun gritted his teeth.

There was no time to be angry here.

He had to find the Man. If the man was caught by Il-gwang, he would be tortured to find out where Lee Seon-jae was. Tae-heun, who knew the torture methods inside and out, was even more anxious.

Just touch one finger.

I’ll kill them all.

Barely suppressing his anger, Tae-heun ran for now. He regretted leaving the car behind. He should have parked it nearby; why did he go to that apartment complex he had never seen before? Here in Gimje, there was no way to get a car at this hour. He had to go back there.

Tae-heun ran to a village near the reservoir and barged into a house with the gate open. Everyone was sound asleep and didn’t even know someone had come. He went up to the wooden floor where a telephone was placed and made a call. He called a taxi.

No one had woken up yet. Tae-heun took out a ten-thousand-won bill from his wallet, placed it next to the phone, and left the house.

He went to the village hall and waited for the taxi. He took the taxi back to the apartment complex.

Crazy bastard.

Tae-heun mocked his misjudgment and carried the various ledgers, documents, and a box containing over a billion won in cash out of the apartment complex.

Did the Helper know?

Did she know and pretend not to know to Tae-heun?

Perhaps the Helper didn’t overlook Tae-heun’s mistake.

So, the Helper might have told Prosecutor Jeong about Tae-heun’s mistake, and Prosecutor Jeong, judging the situation to be serious, might have taken action. It was close to a certainty.

Nevertheless, Tae-heun could not forgive those who tried to take the man away without saying a word to him. No matter who the Helper was, wrong was wrong.

How dare they take the man away from me.

Tae-heun was so angry that he felt nauseous. He was terribly displeased.

He belatedly realized that his whole body smelled of smoke and opened the car window. The smell of smoke. He had completely forgotten about Kim Young-ja. Without knowing that, he had been bewildered when the taxi drivers asked if he had been playing with fire.

Crazy bastard.

The humid wind felt muggy.

His future actions were important. He had to make cold-headed judgments and move without mistakes.

Tae-heun parked the car where the public telephones were lined up.

The only person he could expect information from right now was the Helper. Even if she wasn’t on his side, she would at least tell him how far Il-gwang had come.

He wanted to contact the Helper directly, but he refrained because he had Ji-hye with him. He left the public telephone number on her voicemail. There was no need to wait. The Helper called back immediately, as if she had been awake.

“Were you caught?”

Tae-heun asked abruptly.

“Not yet.”

The Helper replied.

“Where is Jeong Jae-jin?”

“I don’t know either. Except that Lee Seok-doo is going down to Cheongyang.”

“And?”

“Kang Dae-seong is chasing after him. But it’s not certain whether that’s the real Jae-jin or not.”

The Helper was too calm. Her voice suggested that she had expected this. As expected, she knew that Jeong Jae-jin had gone down to Gimje. He wasn’t disappointed or upset. He would have done the same. But taking the man without a word was a big mistake. The Helper didn’t know what kind of guy the real Lee Seon-jae was.

“Seon-jae.”

The Helper called his name as he was about to hang up.

Tae-heun held the receiver without answering. After a brief silence, the Helper said in a somber tone.

“Just think about yourself.”

The Helper’s voice trembled as she gave this advice.

Ah. Foolish person.

He was choked up by the Helper’s loyalty to him.

“What am I? Don’t do that. You’ve done enough.”

Tae-heun said this and hung up the phone.

He gripped the receiver so tightly that it felt like it would break.

It was too much affection and loyalty for a man like him.

I’m always suspicious of you, so why are you so anxious to protect me?

He couldn’t understand. He understood it well enough, but at the same time, he didn’t understand it at all.

Shaking his head, he sent an SOS to the number Jeong Jae-jin had given him this time. This SOS, which Jeong Jae-jin had insisted could only be used once, was a distress signal unrelated to the Helper. Even if Jeong Jae-jin was dead, someone would definitely respond. That’s what Jeong Jae-jin had said.

The person who was supposed to rescue Lee Seon-jae couldn’t possibly not know which area Tae-heun was currently in, so he would definitely come to pick him up. All he had to do was wait.

But Tae-heun was still holding the receiver. There was one last thing he had to do. It was time to make the last gamble of his life, which he might regret the most among the choices he had made.

Tae-heun took a deep breath and entered the number without hesitation. To Chairman Shin of Dongbang Construction, who had offered Lee Seon-jae a scout.

Shin Jeong-ho. He was the last person to test his luck with before walking into Lee Seok-doo’s hands himself.

Now, all that was left was to wait.

Tae-heun, who was about to go back to the car to get some sleep, realized that his car’s license plate might have been exposed. If Jeong Jae-jin had been caught, how could he be safe?

It didn’t matter if he was caught, but the data was the problem. He couldn’t let that data fall into the hands of strangers, especially Il-gwang or other gangsters. They were the kind of people who would use that data like pornography.

He had to hide it.

Tae-heun started the car without a plan.

Even though it was a city, fields and rice paddies appeared just a little outside. He circled back towards the commercial district and stopped in front of a motel. The entrance to the motel had long curtains like any other motel.

Tae-heun drove inside, parked in the farthest corner, and went into the motel. Just in case, he paid for two weeks’ accommodation in cash and came right out. He wondered whether to put a cover on the car, but decided to leave it as it was. Instead, he opened the trunk and took out a rope. He also took the leather gloves he had taken off.

Then he looked around the car. The car, with its wheels and body covered in mud, didn’t look valuable at all. Moreover, because of the boxes that had been rummaged through haphazardly, it looked like the car of someone who had been kicked out of their house or someone who didn’t have a house and wandered around motels like it was their home.

“I’ll leave this to luck too, I guess.”

There were quite a few things to leave to luck, but what did it matter?

Tae-heun put on the leather gloves one by one and walked leisurely towards the public telephone.

He decided not to think about the man for now. Because his judgment would be clouded, he postponed it as much as possible.

Sooner than expected, a Starex was parked in front of the public telephone with the engine running. An advertisement for ‘Gimje First Senior Welfare Center’ was wrapped around the side of the vehicle. Trot music was playing from the car’s audio system.

The driver had slightly opened the car window and was humming along to the song while waiting for Lee Seon-jae.

Tae-heun approached the driver’s side from behind the vehicle and whispered, ‘Lee Seon-jae?’ The driver, still facing forward, replied, ‘290’. It was the code that Jeong Jae-jin and he had jokingly set, Tae-heun’s shoe size. It was definitely someone Jeong Jae-jin had sent.

As Tae-heun got into the Starex, the driver’s hand, which had been holding the gear stick, quickly changed position and tried to start the car immediately. But soon, he was surprised by the rope suddenly wrapped around his neck and dropped his hand.

Cough, cough. The small, thin man in his early 40s struggled to grab the rope tightening around his neck.

Tae-heun gripped the rope in both hands and pulled even harder.

“Where’s Jeong Jae-jin?”

There was no answer. He didn’t even try to answer. He was quite something. Jeong Jae-jin must have entrusted Lee Seon-jae to him because he was a man of this much loyalty.

“Who… are you?”

He must have thought it was someone else since he was being attacked.

“It’s Lee Seon-jae. Where’s Jeong Jae-jin?”

“Keuk… why… ugh… tell me….”

“Just tell me where he went.”

Tae-heun tightened the rope, using the front seat as a support.

If he put a little more force, the man in front would die. The man being strangled knew that too.

“Help! Haaangbok!”

The man, struggling, shouted with all his might.

Tae-heun loosened his grip very slightly.

The driver coughed violently and rubbed his neck. He was still wary of the rope around his neck and glanced back.

“Ugh, what a temper.”

The driver grumbled in a scraping voice.

“Where is he? Where did he go?”

“You’re in such a hurry.”

The man was still coughing and touching his neck.

“Were you going to kill me?”

“Yes. If necessary.”

“Haa, why did I get caught by a guy like you. Tsk.”

The man lamented his fate.

“Damn it. He uses me so much for helping him out once. This is the last time, so tell him not to look for me again if you meet that guy.”

He grumbled even though he was probably on good terms with Jeong Jae-jin.

Tae-heun didn’t have time to play with the man.

As he was about to put force on the rope again, the man said, ‘Okay, okay, I got it. Who said I wouldn’t tell you?’

“He told me to have an ambulance ready in front of the emergency room at the university hospital in Iksan.”

“Emergency room? Who’s hurt?”

“I don’t know that either.”

“So?”

“It wasn’t there. I went there 10 minutes after receiving the call, but it wasn’t there.”

The man clicked his tongue and continued.

“Then, maybe 15 minutes passed? I got a call, telling me to come pick him up.”

He had already crossed over to Gunsan.

The man hurriedly took the ambulance to the meeting place. Just in case, he took two of his subordinates with him. He intuitively knew that Jeong Jae-jin was in danger.

“What kind of guy is that guy? Isn’t that right?”

“Just tell me the location.”

“You’re really something. You’re worse than Prosecutor Jeong.”

“Location.”

Tae-heun growled lowly.

“Okay, okay. He’s probably going to Cheongyang now.”

Tae-heun frowned at the word Cheongyang.

He could see the man subtly putting his fingers between the rope.

“What about the man who was with him?”

“Oh, he’s with Prosecutor Jeong too.”

That was a relief. The the man hadn’t been caught yet. Of course, it was the same as walking into a death trap, but still.

“What’s Prosecutor Jeong’s contact number?”

“He probably can’t answer the phone right now. He’s driving.”

“Contact number.”

“I’m telling you, he can’t answer. 011.”

The man, having said this much, asked to see his notebook, saying that he couldn’t remember the number well.

“If you do anything funny, I’ll tighten it right away.”

“Do I have two lives? Why would I do anything funny?”

The man joked and pulled his body forward to open the glove box.

Shit. Before he could even spit out the curse, Tae-heun fell backward.

It was instantaneous. Even knowing that Jeong Jae-jin wouldn’t entrust himself to an ordinary human, Tae-heun was careless. Even as he lost consciousness, Tae-heun marveled at the driver’s lightning-fast attack.

Chapter 178