168. Park Jeong-hwan and Three Hidden Flaws (1)
Tae-soo smiled and said,
“I’m asking for absolution for everything I do here today.”
Park Jeong-hwan’s eyebrows twitched.
“What kind of trouble are you planning to cause?”
“The atmosphere is unusual, that’s why.”
As if Park Jeong-hwan didn’t know that.
Park Jeong-hwan took a deep drag of his cigarette and exhaled.
It was a visible sigh.
“No treason.”
“Of course not.”
“Then it’s fine.”
“Then, about here…….”
As soon as he got permission, Tae-soo took out paper and a pen from his pocket.
He held it out to Park Jeong-hwan, who looked bewildered.
“What is this?”
“I don’t trust people’s words.”
He was thoroughly prepared.
Not only the title but also the content was written on the paper.
Tae-soo had already finished signing it in advance.
“A memorandum? I’ve never written anything like this even for my wife.”
“I’m honored.”
“…….”
A hollow laugh escaped him.
The content is just one line.
Park Jeong-hwan was dumbfounded.
“I am Park Jeong-hwan.”
“Yes, please write your name and sign there.”
“…….”
Wasn’t Tae-soo the one who got a promissory note from a loan shark?
He wouldn’t budge even if the president glared at him.
“Don’t you know that you should keep your impudence in check?”
“I exchanged it for Your Excellency’s lighter.”
He had said he would grant any request when he returned the lighter.
“It’s just a piece of paper with less than half a day left on its expiration date. I will return it directly to Your Excellency when I return from the Cheongil Hotel.”
“That means…….”
“It means I have something to say to Your Excellency that I’m willing to risk my life for.”
Tae-soo’s expression was solemn.
Park Jeong-hwan and Tae-soo looked at each other.
Neither of them looked away first.
Park Jeong-hwan read the determination in Tae-soo’s eyes.
Slide.
Tae-soo pushed the paper and pen further in front of Park Jeong-hwan.
‘He says he has something to say that he’s willing to risk his life for, so he’s not going to back down. A direct confrontation……. That’s Kang Tae-soo for you.’
Finally, Park Jeong-hwan chuckled.
“You’re the first person to ask me for a memorandum since my father-in-law.”
Park Jeong-hwan’s promise was weighty.
Park Jeong-hwan wrote it down in a flash and handed over the memorandum.
It was typical of Park Jeong-hwan to add a special clause at the very end.
“You’re thorough.”
“You too.”
Grasping both ends of the memorandum, the two men smiled at the same time.
Tae-soo subtly pulled, and Park Jeong-hwan resisted.
The paper fluttered in the air.
Finally, Park Jeong-hwan let go, and Tae-soo put the memorandum in his pocket.
“The promise is kept with this.”
“Thank you.”
He bowed at a 90-degree angle and secretly attached a bug under the chair.
The new bug developed by Taeyang Electronics stuck like glue.
Park Jeong-hwan asked.
“Is it good intuition, good information, or good guts?”
“Didn’t Your Excellency personally warn me earlier?”
“Now that I see it, you’re smart. Not bad.”
Park Jeong-hwan exhaled cigarette smoke.
“What do you want to say to me, risking your life?”
“Before that, I have a question to ask.”
Tae-soo and Park Jeong-hwan faced each other.
“Why are you just standing by and watching?”
Knowing how things are going.
“They haven’t committed a crime yet. A crime that hasn’t been acted upon is not a crime. Don’t you think so?”
That was why Park Jeong-hwan only warned them and didn’t arrest them.
Park Jeong-hwan was waiting.
Until he properly confirmed their intentions.
The disposition could be decided after that.
“Aren’t you afraid?”
“Why should I be afraid?”
The Chief of the Presidential Security Service and the Commander of the Security Command had turned their backs.
Those who should protect his safety first betrayed him.
Why was Park Jeong-hwan so calm in a situation where his safety was threatened?
“You only have one life.”
“I am the supreme commander of this country.”
Park Jeong-hwan flicked his cigarette with his finger to knock off the ash.
The ash, which had been tightly packed and burning red, scattered into the air in an instant.
The cigarette ash, already weakened and burned white, was scattered in all directions.
“If you don’t want to end up like this.”
Tak, tak.
The cigarette was extinguished with just a flick of his finger.
Park Jeong-hwan brutally crushed the already extinguished cigarette in the ashtray.
“If you don’t want to end up like this.”
* * *
The Cheongil Hotel suite where the Ohseonghoe [Five Stars Society, a secret military faction] members gathered.
Seventy people were moving busily.
From inside the closet, behind the display case, under the floor, they tore off the sofa backrests and took out weapon boxes.
Jeon Doo-ho said.
“Take them.”
The Ohseonghoe members took out their weapons and began to arm themselves.
Jeon Doo-ho also took a pistol and put it in his pocket.
“Listen carefully. Tell the army generals to ask to see me secretly, one by one.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Muzzle them with sleeping pills and anesthetics in a secluded place. Tie up the unconscious guys in that room over there.”
“Yes, sir.”
“If it doesn’t work, use weapons. If you hear gunshots, everyone goes into emergency mode.”
“Yes, sir.”
“It would have been nice if everyone had silencers, but that’s a shame.”
It couldn’t be helped since they were military weapons.
At that moment.
Knock knock knock.
The Ohseonghoe members quickly hid their weapons.
“Who is it?”
“It’s me.”
It was Han Cheong-ho.
Jeon Doo-ho’s eyebrows twitched.
-Han Cheong-ho was thinking about other things.
-Han Cheong-ho and Cha Gi-beom had a secret meeting.
Because Kang Tae-soo’s words were lingering in his head.
An Ohseonghoe member carefully asked.
“What should we do?”
Jeon Doo-ho stared at the door and muttered softly.
“That’s what I’m worried about right now.”
Since he decided to trust him, should he really trust him until the end?
* * *
Park Jeong-hwan smiled.
“Did you receive my wife’s keepsake well?”
“Are you talking about this?”
Tae-soo took out a silver cigarette case from his pocket.
It was a cigarette case with a large Cheongwadae [the Blue House, South Korea’s presidential residence] mark on it, a pair with the lighter.
“It was my father-in-law’s gift.”
“I guessed that.”
“Did you see what’s inside?”
“Yes.”
Inside the cigarette case was a yellowed piece of paper.
“What are your thoughts?”
“I understand why the First Lady cherished it as a treasure.”
“How expensive can a mere cigarette case be?”
“It’s an item with a story. It’s an item you can’t get with money.”
“That’s right.”
Originally, items cherished as treasures have stories attached to them.
Park Jeong-hwan nodded.
“My late father-in-law made it as a pair with the lighter you’re holding and gave one to each of us.”
The cigarette case to his daughter.
The lighter to his son-in-law.
He prepared them as items to carry around.
“That man was very opposed to our marriage.”
When Park Jeong-hwan met First Lady Oh Young-soon, he was a divorced man with a child.
Moreover, he was an army major who was 8 years older and the top priority for assassination by the North Korean army right after the war.
However, he had cherished and educated the daughter of a wealthy family with a long history, and then she brought a strange guy.
With good families already discussing marriage, he couldn’t possibly like a flawed son-in-law.
The two had to hold a wedding without permission in the end.
“Even though we had two daughters, even though I became president, he was a stubborn man who only acknowledged me as his son-in-law right before he died.”
Park Jeong-hwan exhaled cigarette smoke.
“That’s the first and last gift I received at that time. And he asked me.”
-If you’re a smoker, you’ll always carry this with you.
-Every time you smoke, every time you see this, think about these words once.
“That paper in the cigarette case. It’s a pledge I wrote myself.”
Didn’t he mention it when he wrote the memorandum earlier?
Tae-soo was the first since his father-in-law.
In other words, he had written it for his father-in-law.
Park Jeong-hwan read the yellowed paper in the cigarette case with his eyes.
“It was a childish game.”
But that man was satisfied with it and died.
Oh Young-soon cherished it like a treasure.
Enough to keep it separately in a Japanese safe.
“Han Cheong-ho was after that, right?”
“Yes.”
“He must have thought this was my weakness.”
“He probably did.”
“What does Han Cheong-ho think when he sees this? Does he still think this is my weakness?”
“He must have hit the ground, thinking he was wrong. He would have judged that it couldn’t be Your Excellency’s weakness.”
Park Jeong-hwan exhaled cigarette smoke.
It was a visible sigh.
“What do you think?”
Tae-soo placed the lighter and cigarette case side by side on the table.
“It is Your Excellency’s weakness.”
“Hahaha. How can this mere thing, this mere pledge, do anything to me?”
“Yes.”
“There’s no handwritten signature of mine anywhere. This is just…….”
“Because you loved the First Lady.”
“…….”
Park Jeong-hwan closed his mouth.
Instead, he rubbed the worn-out cigarette butt in the ashtray and took out another cigarette.
Tae-soo naturally lit the cigarette.
Tick, tock.
Silence flowed.
How many cigarettes did he smoke?
“Jirashi [a tabloid].”
Park Jeong-hwan took out a newspaper from his pocket and threw it on the table.
“There’s a newspaper I’ve been enjoying reading these days. Among them, the novel that ended today is a gem.”
The anonymously published novel was about Han Cheong-ho and the First Lady.
It was a trashy novel full of exciting conspiracy theories and imagination.
But in Park Jeong-hwan’s view, it was just a message conveying what had happened.
“I was enjoying reading it, but the writer is stabbing me in the back like this? This is the first time I’ve seen a novel with such a sloppy ending.”
Park Jeong-hwan poked a passage in the newspaper with his fingertip.
Anger was in his fingertips.
The end of the trashy story is too absurd.
So it was only natural that it led to the anger of a devoted reader.
“I’ve been looking forward to the end of this story so much. I was very disappointed.”
“Because it’s a story that hasn’t ended yet.”
“It would have been cleaner if he had foreshadowed a second part.”
Park Jeong-hwan, who had been staring at the newspaper, turned his gaze to Tae-soo.
“Why did you tell me that story?”
Park Jeong-hwan was convinced.
That Tae-soo was telling Park Jeong-hwan that story through Jirashi.
“Did you know?”
“I found out today. I didn’t know until my daughter went to Japan and brought back that item.”
It was a newspaper that he had left alone because he was afraid that the person who was telling the story of his dead wife would cut off his tail.
That’s why Park Jeong-hwan smiled.
“I met the person who had the item taken from the Japanese safe, so I’ll be able to hear the hidden story, right?”
Tae-soo deliberately ended the story like that.
Aiming for a situation like this right now.
“Tell me in detail from the beginning. Of course, you have evidence, right?”
“Okay.”
As in the novel, Tae-soo began to take out evidence from his pocket.
“Please call Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency Kim Jae-guk and Han Cheong-ho.”
“Okay.”
The tedious long fight with Han Cheong-ho.
It was time to end it now.
‘Han Cheong-ho, it’s a checkmate I made. Let’s go as far as we can go.’
Tae-soo believed in the absolution he felt in his pocket.
Park Jeong-hwan will keep his promise.
‘Today, the three hidden flaws involving Han Cheong-ho and Park Jeong-hwan are all about to be revealed.’
The story Tae-soo is about to tell is just beginning.
* * *
In front of the VIP room on the corner of the 7th floor of the Cheongil Hotel, Han Cheong-ho took a deep breath.
His hands were trembling without him realizing it.
‘I have a bad feeling.’
But he can’t run away.
Han Cheong-ho turned the doorknob.
Click.
A raccoon den is no different.
Three people can be seen through the thick cigarette smoke.
Park Jeong-hwan, Kang Tae-soo, and Kim Jae-guk.
‘Why is Kim Jae-guk…….’
Han Cheong-ho questioned and examined the strange combination.
Park Jeong-hwan pointed with the end of his cigarette.
“Sit down.”
Han Cheong-ho sat down.
Park Jeong-hwan raised his hand.
“Continue.”
Then Kim Jae-guk took out the documents and handed them to Park Jeong-hwan.
“There is someone who opened Your Excellency’s secret vault and sold the assets inside.”
Secret vault.
The first hidden flaw related to Park Jeong-hwan.
Tae-soo and Han Cheong-ho looked at each other.
‘Kang Tae-soo!’
‘Han Cheong-ho.’
The two people who opened Park Jeong-hwan’s secret vault were all gathered.
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