Having sunk into thought for a moment, Tak-hyeon gave Do-beom his instructions.

“There’s no telling what that fellow might suddenly go and do, so keep a close watch on him.”

“Yes, understood.”

Do-beom, who’d been thinking the same even without the instruction, answered at once.

Tak-hyeon, figuring that whatever was going on would surface later if he only kept watching, issued his next instruction.

“More to the point—how’s the presidential race looking right now?”

As interest in Mun-jong receded and turned back to the election, Do-beom relayed to Tak-hyeon the information the secretariat had gathered so far.

“With the IMF making landfall on the peninsula, the electoral terrain has shifted dramatically. On top of that, your own maneuvering, Chairman, has had an enormous influence on shifting that terrain as well.”

“That’s what I set out to do, so it’s gone just as planned.”

“By our current projections, Candidate Dae-sang Kim is leading the ruling-party candidate by a narrow margin.”

“So the ruling-party candidate led the whole way, and now it’s flipped?”

“Yes. With the election right upon us, it appears Candidate Dae-sang Kim has pulled ahead.”

“Good.”

Tak-hyeon was satisfied to see things flowing to Dae-sang Kim’s advantage, just as he’d intended.

And he meant to hand Dae-sang Kim not merely an advantage, but victory.

“Don’t spare any support until the election’s over. If a request comes in from the Dae-sang Kim camp, grant all of it.”

“Chairman. If this leads to the ruling-party candidate winning after all… wouldn’t that put us in a very disadvantageous position?”

“That’s exactly why I told you not to spare the support. The candidate we want has to be the one who becomes president.”

“Understood. But, Chairman.”

Having first given his assent, Do-beom cautiously put a question to Tak-hyeon.

“If the ruling-party candidate comes to us and asks for help, what do you intend to do?”

“The ruling-party candidate, in person?”

“Yes. If he comes himself… would you still intend to back the opposition candidate, Dae-sang Kim?”

The Ilhyeon Group had maintained good relations with the ruling party for generations, going back to Tak-hyeon’s father, the founder.

In the past, they’d even been suspected of having grown into a chaebol thanks to government protection.

And there was a measure of validity to that suspicion.

So Do-beom felt puzzled by Tak-hyeon’s choice to abandon the ruling party.

“It’s not as though you’ve kept close ties with the ruling side for just a year or two. With the current president and all, you’ve always backed the ruling-party candidate ever since direct elections began… so I find it puzzling to just abandon the ruling-party candidate like this.”

“If the ruling-party candidate came to me himself… then yes, I’d be willing to back him. Bigger, more generously, more decisively than I’ve backed Dae-sang Kim now… I could back him.”

Tak-hyeon answered Do-beom’s question at once, as if there were nothing to think twice about.

Do-beom wore a startled expression, as if he hadn’t expected Tak-hyeon to speak so decisively.

But at Tak-hyeon’s next words, he could only shut the mouth he’d opened in surprise.

“That’s if he seeks me out. But will he, really?”

Tak-hyeon wore an expression laced with derision and said,

“If he were the sort to seek me out, he’d have long since sorted out the infighting within his own party. That’s why that fellow’s no good. Even if he runs for president again down the line, that fellow, with that stiff-necked pride of his, is a man who can never become president.”

Having dismissed in a single stroke the reason the ruling-party candidate would fail to become president, Tak-hyeon gave Do-beom his instructions.

“So don’t spare any support for Dae-sang Kim becoming president. And that Mun-jong fellow… look carefully into whether he’s scheming something.”

“Yes, understood.”

He’d been told to look carefully into Mun-jong’s affair, but Mun-jong’s affair could only take second place, after the election.

Because right now, more than anything, the election was what mattered.

Mun-jong’s affair, to be looked into once there was room to spare, after the all-out effort of the election.

The typhoon burrowed into just such an empty gap and made its landfall.

At the very time Tak-hyeon was discussing the election with Do-beom, Mun-jong was somewhere in Seoul, face ashen, talking with his secretary.

“How did this happen? Why is she in Korea?”

“They say she came back to Korea three months ago.”

“You didn’t know she’d come back to Korea? How could you miss that?!”

At the thought of how am I supposed to know about a secret entry when I’m not the immigration office, the secretary wore a wronged expression.

But he couldn’t very well air his grievance to a Mun-jong on the verge of exploding.

“My apologies, Vice-Chairman. I should have kept closer track… I let it slip because I thought the whole thing was finished.”

“Enough.”

Mun-jong waved a hand as if further talk would only wear out his mouth, and brought up something even more important than the matter of her entry.

“But how did she have the child? Huh? She clearly got rid of it.”

The secretary, too, found the fact that she’d had a child even harder to believe than the fact that Mun-jong’s mistress had entered Korea.

“I don’t understand it either. She clearly underwent the abortion procedure at the hospital, and the doctor confirmed it too.”

“Did you look into that doctor?”

“The doctor?”

“The doctor who performed the procedure back then. I’m asking whether you checked with him to confirm for certain that he really did the procedure.”

“That, not yet…”

“You idiot! That’s the first thing you should have checked.”

Thwack!

Mun-jong snatched up the ashtray in front of him and hurled it at the secretary.

“Ugh.”

Struck in the chest by the ashtray, the secretary let out a groan and staggered back a step or two.

Paying no mind to the secretary’s pain, Mun-jong shouted.

“Go to the hospital first thing tomorrow morning and check. No. Go this instant and check.”

Rubbing his palm over the spot where the ashtray had struck him, the secretary looked out the window and said,

“Vice-Chairman. The hospital’s doors are closed at this hour…”

“Even if he’s not at the hospital, he’ll be at home, won’t he?”

“His home?”

Mun-jong looked at the secretary as if he were pathetic and said,

“Yes. Go to his home and ask. And bring back a written confirmation on paper too. A written confirmation stating that if anything was botched, that doctor won’t be left in peace either.”

The secretary looked at Mun-jong with a flustered face.

Because however urgent it was, he wondered whether ordering him to go all the way to the doctor’s home and bring back a written confirmation that the procedure had gone properly at the time was even a sound instruction.

But Mun-jong, right now, had no such power of judgment.

“What are you doing? Get going, now.”

At Mun-jong’s urging, the secretary left, and Mun-jong muttered in a displeased tone.

“That idiot can’t handle a single job properly, so that wench spouts her nonsense.”

Mun-jong believed the whole fault in this matter lay with the secretary.

And he spat out a bit of self-talk that turned its face away from reality.

“That child isn’t mine. She clearly got up to something somewhere and came back to Korea to insist it’s mine. It’s got to be that. She even had the procedure. She had the procedure, so where would a child suddenly come from? She’s clearly playing some trick. Right. That’s it.”

Mun-jong concluded to himself that, however he thought about it, there was no other explanation.

But contrary to his thoughts, his heart wouldn’t settle, and Mun-jong gnawed at his fingernails over and over until they bled.

At the sight of Mun-jong unable to focus on the meeting, Tak-hyeon suddenly shouted.

“What kind of fool are you, with your mind off somewhere else? Do the election results look like some trifling thing to your eyes?”

“Chairman. It’s not that.”

“If it’s not that, then get your head on straight.”

Chairman Tak-hyeon spoke in a booming voice to the Ilhyeon Group’s top brass gathered in the chairman’s office, Mun-jong among them.

“It’s not only important that the president become the man we want. What comes after is what matters more. Head Kim.”

Tak-hyeon called on Seong-ho.

Seong-ho, seated at the far end of the sofa, answered in a voice as booming as Tak-hyeon’s.

“Yes, Chairman.”

“What do you think Dae-sang Kim will do first once he becomes president?”

Those present turned their gazes to Seong-ho, following Tak-hyeon’s question.

And they looked at him with eyes that said, how could he possibly know a thing like that?

“The first thing Candidate Dae-sang Kim will do after becoming president will be to gather the heads of the top five business groups.”

“Gather the group heads?”

“Yes.”

Seong-ho looked around at the gazes gathered on him and went on.

“Right now, the most important thing—say what anyone will—is the economy. And Dae-sang Kim is not unaware of that. After winning the presidency, before he formally takes up the office, he’ll want to show that he’s different from the current president. He’ll gather the business heads, hear them out, and try to achieve a realignment of the business world under his own leadership.”

“A realignment? What’s that?”

The president of Ilhyeon Life, present at the meeting, threw out the question, not understanding what “realignment” meant.

Seong-ho looked at the Ilhyeon Life president who’d asked and spoke in a kindly voice.

“Government-led restructuring. That’s what he’ll try to do.”

“Restructuring, led by the government? What on earth…”

The Ilhyeon Life president, about to say how absurd, saw Tak-hyeon listening to Seong-ho’s words in earnest and stopped what he was about to say.

Because if Tak-hyeon felt Seong-ho’s words held water, then regardless of his own opinion, it became a proposition with a strong likelihood.

And Tak-hyeon nodded at Seong-ho’s words.

“Yes. There’s a possibility to it.”

Tak-hyeon looked around at the seated core presidents of the Ilhyeon Group and said,

“You all know the talk that the restructuring situation at the other groups—every one but us—is in poor shape. They say we’re the only place that’s met the level the IMF demands. The IMF is demanding high-intensity corporate restructuring in order to proceed with the next tranche, and since they can’t meet it, he may well try to carry out restructuring under government leadership.”

Having added his own comment to Seong-ho’s words, Tak-hyeon pointed a finger at Seong-ho and said,

“This is exactly the kind of thing I want to hear. Whatever it is, I called you all here to tell me what situation is anticipated once Dae-sang Kim becomes president and by what method we should meet the anticipated situation. And yet how is it that the only one who speaks to it properly is Head Kim, and no one else?”

Tak-hyeon looked around at the core presidents with a pitiful gaze.

And looking at Mun-jong, seated nearest to him, he let out a sigh and said,

“When the man who’s supposed to be Vice-Chairman is off in a daze, are the rest of them likely to be any better? The whole lot of you are an eyesore, so out you go.”

At Tak-hyeon’s order to clear out, the core presidents rose from their seats.

And just as they bowed their heads toward Chairman Tak-hyeon and made to leave the chairman’s office, Tak-hyeon called out to Seong-ho.

“Hey. Head Kim.”

“Yes, Chairman.”

“You anticipate what Dae-sang Kim will say when he summons the group heads, and what I ought to say when I go there, and bring it to me.”

“Yes, understood.”

“Off you go, then.”

The core presidents stood there a moment, looking at Seong-ho.

Tak-hyeon had anticipated government-led restructuring and instructed Seong-ho to draw up their response fitted to that anticipation.

An instruction of this sort lent weight to Seong-ho—it could be seen as Tak-hyeon’s roundabout way of expressing that he’d be discussing the group’s future management direction with Seong-ho.

The presidents glanced at Mun-jong, standing shoulder to shoulder with Seong-ho.

Because they got the feeling that a decision like this of Tak-hyeon’s might be grating on Mun-jong’s pride.

Even Tak-hyeon, who’d said it, seemed curious about Mun-jong’s reaction.

But Mun-jong, perhaps with nothing on his mind, gave a curt nod of his head, turned, and left the chairman’s office.

The core presidents wore flustered expressions for a moment at Mun-jong’s reaction, then, following after him, bid their farewells to Tak-hyeon and left the chairman’s office.

Last of all, Seong-ho gazed meaningfully at the back of the departing Mun-jong, then left the chairman’s office.

In the chairman’s office, now emptied of everyone, Tak-hyeon held out a hand toward Chief Do-beom and asked,

“You still don’t know why that fellow’s carrying on like this?”

“I’ve confirmed as far as one of Mun-jong’s secretaries scurrying about busily. But the rest of the Vice-Chairman’s secretariat staff are keeping quiet, so confirming whether that secretary’s scurrying is on account of Mun-jong’s problem or not is being delayed.”

Do-beom fit a cigarette into Tak-hyeon’s hand and drew a lighter from his pocket.

And having lit the cigarette for Tak-hyeon as he brought it to his lips, he asked,

“With the election the day after tomorrow, the secretariat is putting all its effort into election-related work, so information on Mun-jong isn’t coming in real time. Shall I peel off some secretariat personnel and turn them toward Mun-jong?”

“Hoo.”

Tak-hyeon let out a long stream of cigarette smoke and shook his head.

“The election ends in two days anyway, doesn’t it? Let’s keep watching until then.”

Tak-hyeon took a puff or two of the cigarette, tapped the ash into the ashtray Do-beom held out, and said,

“If he’s still in this state by then, look into it properly. Because I can’t stand not knowing just why that fellow is carrying on so.”

“Yes, understood.”

Do-beom gave his assent to Tak-hyeon’s instruction and turned to look at the chairman’s office door that Tak-hyeon was gazing at.

And so, beyond the chairman’s office door the two men were gazing at, Mun-jong and his secretary were having the very conversation the two of them were so curious about.

“Vice-Chairman.”

Mun-jong started violently at the secretary’s appearance and yanked at his clothes.

Then, checking his surroundings, he dragged the secretary off to one side of the corridor.

“How did it go?”

Mun-jong’s secretary, wearing a flustered expression, couldn’t answer Mun-jong’s question and dithered.

“The thing is…”

Mun-jong wore a troubled expression at the secretary’s manner and pressed him.

“What is it? What’s the matter? Did the doctor say he didn’t do the procedure? Did he?!”

Thinking he might have spoken too loudly himself, Mun-jong hurriedly shut his mouth.

And he checked his surroundings to see whether anyone was listening in.

But the people who’d left the chairman’s office with him were simply walking off to their own offices without sparing Mun-jong a glance.

Reassured, Mun-jong pressed the secretary again.

“Why can’t you speak? What is it? What did the doctor say?”

“The thing is…”

“Stop just saying ‘the thing is’ and speak properly. What is it? What did he say?”

“Vice-Chairman.”

Mun-jong looked at the secretary, who only kept calling his title without managing a proper word, as if exasperated.

Under Mun-jong’s gaze, the secretary barely opened his mouth in a small voice.

“Vice-Chairman. The doctor… is dead.”

“Dead? What do you mean, dead?”

“They say he died in a traffic accident last year.”

“If he’s dead, then how do we confirm the surgical records?”

At the unforeseen turn, Mun-jong asked the secretary in a fluster.

The secretary spoke, still wearing a flustered expression.

“After the doctor died, the hospital was wound up and all the charts vanished too. So… there’s no way to know whether the procedure was properly carried out.”

At the unexpected words, Mun-jong wore a look of disbelief and said,

“So what you’re saying is—nobody knows whether the procedure was properly done or not?”

“Yes. At the time it was a procedure done at night with the hospital doors locked and not even a nurse present, so there are no witnesses either.”

“Damn it…”

At the tangled situation, Mun-jong, before he knew it, covered his eyes with his hand.

And from a distance, Seong-ho was watching this scene wordlessly, a smile on his face.

(End of Chapter 112)