Chapter 311: Saho, Thank You So Much

Director Santiago had rushed out of the interrogation room to check whether Carlos’s laptop password was correct. Naturally, the laptop itself was being kept in the observation room, so even allowing some extra time, it should have taken no more than a couple of minutes to verify it.

Yet for some unknown reason, Director Santiago had not returned to the interrogation room for more than ten minutes.

While I was wondering why, Defense Minister Fernando spoke to me.

“Chief Cha, could Director Santiago not be coming back because the password was wrong?”

“If that were the case, he would have told us long ago.”

“Then why hasn’t he come back yet?”

“I don’t know. Maybe we should call Director Santiago?”

Bzzzt, bzzzt!

At that moment, the phone lying on the table vibrated.

When I picked it up, I saw that the caller was NIS Director Om Giyeon, who had been watching us from the observation room. After asking Defense Minister Fernando for permission, I answered the call.

“Director Om, I’m listening.”

[Chief Cha, Director Santiago is currently speaking on the phone with Philippine police chief Angelo.]

It seemed Director Santiago had found information about the drug distribution network on Carlos’s laptop and was now discussing a plan with Police Chief Angelo to dismantle it.

Wanting to confirm my guess, I cautiously asked Director Om.

[Your guess is exactly right.]

“I see. When will Director Santiago be back?”

[He only just started speaking with Chief Angelo, so it’ll probably take quite a while.]

“Understood. Let me know if anything changes.”

Click.

The moment I hung up, Defense Minister Fernando immediately asked with curiosity,

“Chief Cha, what were you talking about with Director Om?”

Since I had spoken to NIS Director Om Giyeon in Korean as a precaution, Defense Minister Fernando had not understood the conversation.

“Director Santiago is currently speaking on the phone with Police Chief Angelo.”

“So they’re discussing measures to wipe out the drug trafficking network?”

“You’re exactly right, Minister. Though I wonder whether they’ll really be able to eliminate the entire network.”

“Planting informants inside the police is a classic move for drug syndicates.”

There was clear skepticism in Defense Minister Fernando’s answer. In other words, completely eradicating them would be difficult.

“I understand what you mean. Then why not use the military to wipe out the drug traffickers?”

“That was brought up before, but Police Chief Angelo strongly opposed it.”

“I wonder why he was against it.”

“He claimed the police force alone was more than capable of handling it. But I took it to mean he simply didn’t want to hand his own piece of the pie over to the military.”

“Ah, I see.”

“Anyway, let’s put that headache aside.”

I still had more questions for Defense Minister Fernando regarding the operation against the drug syndicate, but he made it clear that he did not want to continue the subject. Once I understood his mood, asking further would have been tactless.

“All right. It looks like Director Santiago won’t be back for a while.”

“Shall we continue interrogating Carlos until he returns?”

I nodded in agreement and resumed Carlos’s interrogation.

“Is there any chance the gold bars you hid in the cave are fake?”

“I was worried about that too, so when I bought them, I had every single bar thoroughly inspected.”

So the gold was real.

Considering that a tremendous stroke of luck, I continued questioning Carlos.

“Who did you buy the bars from, and how much did you pay?”

“I bought them for three billion dollars from an influential Chinese government official, Zhang Jinan, Deputy Secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.”

I was quite surprised inwardly.

Naturally so, because Carlos had just mentioned the name of someone I never expected to hear.

“Deputy Secretary Zhang Jinan?”

“You... know him?”

“He’s the older brother-in-law of the late Vice Chairman Chen Zhihui.”

At that moment, a strange thought flashed through my mind.

If Carlos had bought the gold bars from Deputy Secretary Zhang Jinan, Vice Chairman Chen Zhihui should have known about it. Yet Chen Zhihui had had no idea who Carlos had purchased the gold from.

I asked Carlos about that inconsistency.

“I met Deputy Secretary Zhang Jinan six years ago, when he was appointed ambassador to the Philippines. I bought the gold five years ago, and it was only four years ago that he introduced me to Vice Chairman Chen Zhihui.”

“Ah, so that’s why Vice Chairman Chen didn’t know about the gold purchase.”

At that moment, Defense Minister Fernando, apparently unable to contain his curiosity, asked me,

“Couldn’t Deputy Secretary Zhang have told Chen Zhihui about it?”

“When large transactions involving precious metals or resources take place, a non-disclosure and non-circumvention agreement is always signed. Deputy Secretary Zhang knew that, so he wouldn’t have gone around talking about it with Chen Zhihui.”

“Hmm... I see. But where did Deputy Secretary Zhang get that much gold?”

Bzzzt, bzzzt!

Once again, the phone lying on the table vibrated.

I quickly glanced at the screen and saw that the caller was Jo Ilcheol, Deputy Director of North Korea’s Reconnaissance General Bureau.

For a moment, I tilted my head in confusion.

Why would he be calling me?

Finding it strange, I apologized to Defense Minister Fernando and answered the call.

“Deputy Director Jo, I’m listening.”

[Chief Cha, I secretly visited the Philippines five years ago.]

I recalled what had happened aboard CIA Director Griffin’s private plane just before we departed for the Philippines.

At the time, Director Griffin had asked Jo Ilcheol whether he had ever been to the Philippines. Jo Ilcheol had answered that he had made an unofficial visit around five years ago.

Back then, I had thought the exchange was unimportant and paid no attention to it.

But now it turned out that he had come to meet Zhang Jinan, who was serving as China’s ambassador to the Philippines.

To confirm my guess, I asked him directly.

[Your guess is correct.]

“You mean you came to the Philippines to sell gold bars to Ambassador Zhang?”

[Exactly.]

“And how much did you sell the gold to him for?”

[Two billion dollars.]

“What? Didn’t you sell it far too cheaply?”

[North Korea’s economic situation was extremely difficult at the time. We had no choice.]

It seemed Ambassador Zhang Jinan had taken advantage of North Korea’s desperate situation to force the price down.

Jo Ilcheol had been forced to sell the gold with bitter reluctance.

Then Zhang Jinan had resold the gold he bought from Jo Ilcheol to Carlos for three billion dollars.

Thanks to that, he had pocketed a massive one-billion-dollar profit in a short period of time.

‘Deputy Secretary Zhang Jinan, if I let you get away with this, then I’m not Cha Jiham.’

Clenching my teeth tightly, I continued speaking with Jo Ilcheol.

“And what happened to the two billion dollars from the gold sale?”

[I transferred it to Kim Jonghun’s secret account.]

“You sold the gold to save North Korea’s collapsing economy, didn’t you?”

[That was the intention, but there was nothing I could do.]

Jo Ilcheol’s answer made it perfectly clear what had happened.

Kim Jonghun had simply taken the money by force.

“The saying ‘the rich are never satisfied’ fits perfectly here.”

[I think so too, Chief Cha.]

“I hope you’re satisfied that you managed to squeeze nine billion dollars out of Kim Jonghun, including interest.”

[What do you mean?]

“I’m talking about the money from the gold hidden in his son Kim Juchol’s house.”

[Ah, now I understand what you mean.]

At that moment, the interrogation room door opened and Director Santiago came inside.

After apologizing to Jo Ilcheol, I ended the call.

Director Santiago asked me curiously,

“Can you tell me what you were discussing with Deputy Director Jo Ilcheol?”

“How did you know I was talking to Deputy Director Jo?”

“I was in the same room as him.”

“Ah! I completely forgot about that. [N O V E L I G H T] It turns out Carlos bought the gold bars from a Chinese official, Deputy Secretary Zhang Jinan.”

I gave Director Santiago and Defense Minister Fernando a detailed account of the information I had obtained from Carlos and Jo Ilcheol.

Naturally, I carefully left out the part about the gold taken from Kim Juchol’s house.

“...So he made a one-billion-dollar profit from it.”

“To make a fifty-percent profit in such a short period of time... That man certainly has an impressive instinct for business.”

“I agree with you, Director Santiago.”

“Was there anything else from Carlos’s interrogation that I should know about?”

“Carlos was convinced that Abu Sayyaf’s second-in-command, Alberto, had betrayed him.”

Director Santiago looked over at Carlos, who was sitting there blankly, and spoke.

“Alberto died in the government bombing, so you can rest easy now.”

“Excuse me... I have a question. How many of my men survived?”

“Well... I doubt there were even fifty.”

Carlos’s vision went dark.

Around three thousand of his militants had been living at Abu Sayyaf’s main base.

And only around fifty had survived?

Even if he somehow miraculously got out of here alive, rebuilding Abu Sayyaf was completely out of the question.

What was the point of miserably clinging to life in that situation?

“Director Santiago, just kill me.”

“Do you really want to die?”

Apparently, Carlos did not truly want to die, because he immediately fell silent.

Letting out a heavy sigh, Director Santiago glared at him sternly and continued.

“If you mention dying one more time, I’ll personally shoot you. Do you understand?”

“Yes. I understand!”

Carlos’s frightened voice echoed through the interrogation room.

“If you want to live, you’ll have to disclose every hidden account and every property you have offshore.”

“I’ll do everything you ask.”

“We’ll see. Team Leader Daniel, take him away.”

Team Leader Daniel and the NBI operatives grabbed Carlos and escorted him out of the interrogation room.

Afterward, Defense Minister Fernando asked Director Santiago,

“Do you really intend to keep Carlos alive?”

“We’ll have to keep him alive for a while.”

“Is there a reason?”

“That bastard owns quite a lot of real estate. It’ll take at least a year to confiscate every last property.”

“Ah, now I understand.”

Leaving Defense Minister Fernando’s response at that, Director Santiago turned to me.

“President Gonzalez wants to meet with you, Chief Cha.”

‘That works out perfectly,’ I thought.

I had wanted to meet President Gonzalez myself.

“That’s good news.”

“Ha ha. Excellent, then. We leave for Manila in one hour.”

“...What!?”

I stared at him.

“You mean we’re going to meet President Gonzalez tonight?”

“Of course.”

Between the bombing of the Abu Sayyaf base and the arrest of Carlos’s group, we had spent almost the entire night without sleep.

During the day, there had been no time to catch our breath because we had been monitoring the operation to capture the North Korean submarines.

On top of that, it was already almost midnight.

And now, in this state, we were supposed to go meet President Gonzalez?

“I’m exhausted. Can we visit him tomorrow morning instead?”

“I’d prefer that too, but President Gonzalez is waiting for us.”

‘This is driving me insane.’

Bzzzt.

At that moment, the phone lying on the table vibrated briefly.

I glanced at the screen and saw a text message from Chief Secretary Kang Inhan.

— Why not mention Saho?

I nodded to show that I understood the hint, then continued speaking with Director Santiago.

“To find the secret room where Carlos hid the gold, I promised Saho a reward.”

“A reward?”

“Nothing more than the chance to hunt to his heart’s content.”

“And what does Saho hunting have to do with visiting President Gonzalez?”

“Saho is out hunting right now.”

“Then we’ll leave as soon as Saho comes back.”

“Saho probably won’t return until dawn.”

“Ah... Then what are we supposed to do...”

Director Santiago trailed off, thinking it over.

Fortunately, he did not need long.

“It can’t be helped. We’ll postpone the visit to President Gonzalez until tomorrow morning.”

‘Saho, thank you so much.’

Thanks to Saho, I had managed to secure a few precious hours of rest.