“You still haven’t found it? Where the hell did all those shares go!”

Krauman Pelton exploded in the chairman’s office at the Pelton Hotel headquarters in McLean, Virginia.

Lately he’d been going out of his mind.

The fallout from America’s subprime mess was killing the world economy.

The hotel business only made money when the world was stable and people had cash to spare.

When the economy hit bottom, the hotel business plunged right along with it.

The money had seized up like a hardened artery, and it had the travel and hotel industries by the throat. (TL Note: The Korean coins “money-sclerosis” here, a pun on the word for hardening of the arteries.)

Krauman had been running himself ragged, scraping together the funds he needed and trying to push up room bookings. (TL Note: The Korean phrase is “running east and west”—rushing around in every direction at once.)

Then, not long ago, he’d been blindsided—hard.

The shares he’d released to shore up his capital had been hit by short sellers and driven into the ground.

The moment the newspaper columns started talking about a crisis in the hotel industry, the stock price was cut in half.

Every shareholder, spooked by the recession, dumped in a panic.

And somebody had sucked all those shares right up.

“A private equity fund called Unions has bought up around twenty percent. A few other funds seem to have been buying at the same time, but… we can’t pin them down.”

Harrison, the director in charge of the stock, looked pained.

There had been a sudden flood of trading lately.

With that much volume every day, the only way to find out who held what was to call a shareholders’ meeting and count heads.

“Did you contact Unions? Tell them we’ll pay double what they paid! Those worms at Morgan, those bastards! How could they hand over every share behind my back!”

Morgan had held a twenty percent stake in the Pelton Hotel as an old investment.

Under a secret agreement, they were supposed to give notice before selling, but they’d double-crossed him.

The stock was in free fall, and Morgan itself was a step from death in the subprime fallout, so they’d sold off everything.

Krauman’s fury at JP Morgan was beyond imagining.

He’d given their key directors and employees rooms at special Pelton Hotel discount rates.

And they’d forgotten every kindness and stabbed him in the back.

“We did reach out, but there’s been no answer. With private equity, it all comes down to what the investors want.”

“Haa… I’ve never been taken like this in my whole life. Harrison, does this make any sense? A ten-billion-dollar company is about to change hands for a measly three billion dollars. I didn’t break my back building this business to see this…”

Krauman sank back in his chair, deflated.

If his control of the company wasn’t secure, the business was finished.

The recession gave them the perfect excuse to replace the entire management, and he wouldn’t have a leg to stand on.

“…But there seems to be a Korean connection.”

“Korea? What’s in that tiny country?”

“After Unions became a major shareholder, their very first condition was VIP treatment—major-shareholder level—for a certain person in Korea. From what we’ve found, a Korean investment company owns one percent of our stock.”

“What? You’re telling me that person is an investor in the fund?”

“It’s private equity—there’s no way to find out who the owners are. Unions set up its corporation in Bermuda, too. But there’s definitely some kind of connection.”

“Look into it! And before they pile up any more shares, give orders to treat the people Unions asked about even better than you’d treat me!”

“Understood.”

“And raise our bet on Hillary. If it comes to it, we may need the government’s muscle.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

“Whoever it is… if they think they’re getting this for free, I’ll kill them! I’ll skin them and throw them in the California desert!”

Krauman Pelton snarled at an enemy he didn’t know.

He had no idea how terrifying that enemy really was.

“Robert. Get ready for an all-out short-selling attack, please. The target is… the Ana Group, in Korea. I’ve emailed you the materials.”

“How far do we take it, Boss?”

“A management takeover.”

Why even ask? The surest way to choke off the man you were after was to buy him outright.

Koreans couldn’t short-sell stocks in their own country.

But foreign capital always could.

When the subprime fallout gets worse, short selling will be halted for a while.

I’d found a way to slip through that gap.

“I’ll handle it.”

“Korean conglomerates have complicated ownership structures. Buy just a few of the core companies tied together by cross-holdings, and it’s over.”

“Korean corporate governance is famous even on Wall Street.”

The whole world knows how misshapen Korean conglomerates are.

That was exactly why money was the easiest way to take them.

It was a brilliant trick: become the major shareholder of one company through a tangle of interlocking stakes, then use those stakes to run the whole group however you liked.

But it was aging software now.

Absorb the core of the circular shareholding, and the rest came up in a string, like sweet potatoes on a vine.

“We’ll need to make use of the press. Please bring a few American and Korean news outlets on board in the company’s name.”

Real journalism was disappearing from the world.

After 2010, all that’s left are wage-slave reporters people call press garbage.

With money, you can sway the press too.

“How much time do we have?”

“The shorter the better. I’d like it wrapped up as fast as possible.”

“It’ll go exactly the way you want, Boss.”

Robert knew the power money gives.

His voice was full of it.

“I’m thinking of restructuring it as a holding company. If you know an outstanding executive, recommend one. I’d like someone of Korean descent, so the Korean press and government have no grounds to object.”

“I’ll look into it, Boss.”

I wanted an executive who was warm but clear-headed, someone who knew how to make everyone win.

The age of group owners who fattened only themselves and their families was over.

“Keep it secret until we pull the trigger.”

“Don’t worry about security, Boss.”

Security and secrecy were what I’d drilled into him again and again.

Robert had made his living on Wall Street, and he followed my wishes to the letter.

There was no place in the world more rotten than Wall Street, the center of global finance.

“Boss, there’s one more thing.”

“What is it?”

“The Pelton side got in touch with Unions.”

“About buying back the shares?”

Out of nowhere, the Pelton Hotel Group had taken an uppercut in its sleep and lost its major-shareholder position.

In their shoes, my heart would’ve been jumping out of my chest too.

“Yes. They say they’re willing to buy at a good price.”

I’d never seen the face of whoever ran the Pelton Hotel Group, but I could picture it perfectly—burning up inside.

Unlike most American companies, the Pelton was family-run.

“Tell them we have no interest in running it. All they need to do is run the business openly and fairly and report to the shareholders.”

That was an unmistakable threat to the Pelton family.

An American executive caught in occupational embezzlement or breach of trust could get as much as life imprisonment.

The punishments weren’t anything like a flimsy Korean court’s.

That was the audit power only a major shareholder could wield.

“I’ll pass that along.”

It was a world-class hotel chain, exactly what you need when you travel the world.

I had the right to use the royal suite free of charge anytime, without a reservation.

A right I’d earned by investing legitimately.

However much money you have, it never hurts to save some.

And they wanted me to hand that back?

No thank you.

“Keep up the good work, Robert.”

“I’ll keep you posted on how it’s going. Get some rest, Boss.”

I hung up with Robert, dependable as ever.

The last few days had gone by like a storm.

The Oh Dong-seong affair still wasn’t over.

His name was still bouncing around the papers and internet portals.

But the story was fading fast.

This morning, out of nowhere, rumors broke that a hot young actor and actress were dating.

Every outlet came stampeding, trumpeting the two stars.

To me it was the same tired old smoke screen.

The Ana Group had clearly done a massive amount of lobbying.

“I haven’t even started, people.”

Grass keeps growing unless you pull it up by the roots.

There’s a reason for the old four-character saying: cut the grass, pull up the roots.

The old man in the dream had warned me too.

Some people are just no good, he’d said, so never be big-hearted enough to forgive them.

What I already knew about the Ana Group was enough to justify punishing them.

The son’s wild ways were something he’d learned watching his parents.

Father and son alike, they were both a disgrace.

The typical arrogance of a gold-spoon family, passed down through the blood.

“Watch closely as that measly little fortune of yours vanishes into thin air.”

I was learning how frightening money could be—something I’d never have understood before.

I remember days when I couldn’t eat my fill because I didn’t have a few thousand won.

Not anymore.

I had command of more money than any one person could ever hold.

And once I did, I saw a different world.

The arrogance of people with a little pocket change looked downright laughable.

The truly rich didn’t show it.

I felt sorry for the men who strutted around with their chests puffed out just because their companies were called groups and conglomerates.

Standing several levels above them and looking down, I didn’t envy them one bit.

Running a business in Korea is hard.

Every time the government changes, you have to go testify at a hearing.

Slip up, and a few trips to prison are just part of a group head’s fate.

IT has come too far now; you can’t wriggle out with sloppy account books the way you used to.

“I’ll make you a farmhand—the head farmhand, even.”

What else is money for?

It makes a perfect switch for whipping the ones who’ve gone wrong.

“Dong-seong… if you’re ever born again, don’t go running into hyung.”

Until it got tangled up with Oh Dong-seong, it had been just another bad conglomerate.

But now it was bound to me by a vicious fate.

If anyone dug into what happened to the son, Seo-ryeon could get hurt too.

Idly, I looked over the Ana Group’s share prices.

Its leash was the core stocks: the Ana Group and Ana Life.

Twelve companies were part of the circular shareholding—the most of any group in Korea.

Between them, they held thirty-four of the group’s fifty affiliates.

Topple just the core, Ana Incorporated and Ana Life, and I could take every affiliate.

A few unlisted companies outside the core would be left, but they were all scraps.

Without the parent company propping them up, they couldn’t survive on their own.

“Hmph.”

A cold sneer escaped me.

The Ana Group’s stock had crashed more than fifteen percent on the Oh Dong-seong scandal.

If short sellers piled on, it would drop to half within days.

All it took was for the press to start trumpeting, and it was over.

The Ana Group had released a lot of its shares to fund the Daeung Shipbuilding takeover.

In the original timeline, too, this is when the stock collapses, thanks to the subprime crisis and the reckless Daeung Shipbuilding takeover.

A share price in the ninety-thousand-won range crashes to the twenty-thousands in half a year.

I meant to move that date up.

Whatever anyone said, I’d look like a sound investor buying a company on the verge of going under.

Beeeep.

The intercom buzzed.

“Sir, Manager Hwang Yeon-tae of KNB Entertainment is here to see you.”

Team Leader Yu Se-ra’s voice rang out bright and clear; she’d come in early.

She was thrilled to see so much of me these days.

Whenever there was time, we ate together and had coffee.

I’d set the Lunar New Year holiday at ten days.

A stay in a Pelton Hotel suite came with it.

She seemed to live for the family trips she took every holiday.

She knew there wasn’t another company like this anywhere, and she gave it everything she had.

“Please, show him in.”

“Yes.”

I got up from the CEO’s desk.

The automatic door of the CEO’s office slid open.

“Welcome, Manager Hwang.”

“…Uh… yes.”

Manager Hwang hesitated. Outside this office, he’d have talked to me like a pal; here, he couldn’t manage it.

The company was a little bigger than the booger-sized outfit he’d pictured.

Team Leader Yu, who could give any celebrity a run for her money; the size of the office; the whole feel of the CEO’s office—all of it had cowed him.

KNB Entertainment’s CEO and director had been arrested.

I’d called in Manager Hwang, who was probably sitting around in a daze.

My company had bought a stake in it—specially, and on the record.

“You like coffee, don’t you?”

“…Yes.”

Even Manager Hwang didn’t dare talk down to me.

He looked at me with a complicated expression.

He didn’t seem to know why he was here.

He still didn’t know I was the largest shareholder.

“Team Leader Yu, two coffees, please.”

“Yes, sir~.”

I ordered through the intercom.

“Have a seat.”

My bearing was different here, too, from how I carried myself outside.

No jeans or anything like that.

I’d dressed neatly, in a shirt and cardigan.

Manager Hwang could tell, too, that this wasn’t the easy big-brother, little-brother mood of before.

This was a war room, where battles against the world’s money were planned.

Not a place for friendly chatter and jokes.

It was an office not even Team Leader Yu entered lightly.

Manager Hwang sat down carefully in the leather chair.

“Were you surprised I called you in so suddenly?”

“Y-yeah… I mean, yes.”

“KNB’s CEO and director have been arrested, I hear.”

It had been on the news for a moment, then vanished, buried under the Oh Dong-seong affair.

“…Whoever it was, they must have a grudge against our company. Out of nowhere, a perfectly fine company gets hit with embezzlement and breach of trust…”

“That was me.”

“What? Wh-what did you say!!!”

(End of Chapter 104)