Bang!

The investigator brought his hand down hard on the desk and shouted.

"Look here. Sang-jong Lee. Do you even know what charges you are in here on?"

Sang-jong Lee said nothing and only kept his head down.

The investigator shook the papers up and down at him and said,

"The charges against you are not one or two. Do you think only murderers are serious offenders? You are a serious offender too. Keeping your mouth shut does not make your crimes disappear. When answering the investigation faithfully would hardly be enough, you mean to go on being uncooperative like this?"

"I shall say nothing without a lawyer."

"You—"

At the sight of Sang-jong Lee sitting with his head bowed and his mouth shut fast, the investigator jabbed a finger at him with a face full of heat.

Because of Sang-jong Lee's shut mouth the investigation was in difficulties.

They needed to find out on whose instruction it had been done, whether such things had happened in the past, and whether there had been other unlawful acts besides; and because of his refusal to cooperate they could do nothing at all.

"Investigator Kim. Let your anger go a moment."

"Deputy Chief Prosecutor."

Investigator Kim looked round at Dae-su Park, who had come into the interview room without his noticing.

Dae-su Park walked round behind him, kneaded his shoulders for a moment, and glanced down at the papers he had been looking at.

"I shall take this."

"You will, Deputy Chief Prosecutor?"

Investigator Kim looked up at him with a startled face.

Headquarters had been established to investigate the illegal presidential campaign funds.

Thirty prosecutors, a hundred-odd investigators and a support team besides — a special investigation headquarters into which the whole strength of the Republic of Korea's investigative machinery had been poured.

The second man in that place, and the one who held the actual authority over the investigation, was Dae-su Park.

He had handled a great many cases at a young age, and had shown outstanding results in those connected with Ilhyeon in particular, and so had come here…