It was dark in the Choi Young Shin's house. She was momentarily out of town due to an event she had to attend because of her position. Ba Reum had made sure to check it before he broke in. He had hotwired the security camera outside and made sure to stay away from all the streetlamps when he got inside.
The alarm was easy to put out and there seemed to be no other security measures taken. He reached her office, quickly installing a camera behind the edge of painting, aiming that it clearly showed her desk and the chairs in front of it, making sure that not only Choi Young Shin would be visible, but all her visitors.
The microphone joined the camera.
Ba Reum took a few steps back and looked at the painting critically, then he gave it the tiniest of pushes and stepped back, nodding to himself. No one would be able to spot it, unless they moved the painting.
He went back towards her desk and started to riffle through it, emptying all drawers. Then he knocked on the bottom of each drawer and sure enough, one of them gave an hollow sound back.
He carefully opened the secret drawer and grabbed the files.
He wanted to check them here, but then he had to turn on the light to be able to read, and if someone saw it, that would cause unnecessary complications. He put them in his bag for now and carefully snuck out of the house.
All in all, it was rather uneventful, for which he was glad.
The next morning Bong Yi's halmoni's case was being held. All in all it took just about 15 minutes.
They presented their case, showed the judge the medical rapport of dr. Sung Yo Han. Since it was a question of medicale leniency, there was no opposing lawyer.
Of course, the fact that Dr Sung Yo Han's reputation was that of a brutally honest doctor did give extra credibility to their case.
So after those stressful 15 minutes, the judge decreed that halmoni would be released. She was still on probation and could not move around freely. She was not allowed to go out of the country, but they didn't have that kind of money to spare anyway.
The most important part was that halmoni he would be able to go home. They just had to go through some formalities, and by tomorrow this hour, halmoni would be home.
Since the meeting had been a closed affair, Chi Kook, Dong Koo and Ba Reum hadn't been allowed in the court room, and they had been waiting outside. Ba Reum was trying to hide a yawn. His escapades from yesterday had taken quiete a few hours, and he had only been able to get an hour or 3 sleep before he had to get up to prepare for this.
The moment they saw Bong Yi run outside, smiling widely, they all knew that the news was positive.
She ran towards her friends, throwing her arms around the three of them and holding them closely, tears of happiness running down her face.
She looked over at Ba Reum and noticed that he looked tired again, the blackness under his eyes starting to look more pronounced again.
"Are you okay oppa?" she asked after they were done congratulating her. He looked surprised at her question.
"I'm fine." He said, trying to smile for her. "Just didn't sleep a lot last night, I was nervous for your grandmother."
She smiled and Chi Kook ruffled his hair, opening his mouth to comment on what Ba Reum said, but then Ba Reum's phone started to ring.
"Sorry." Ba Reum said, fishing it out of his pocket and frowning at it. It was detective Sang, which was very unusual.
Ba Reum stepped away from his friend and answered his phone.
"Detective Sang? Ba Reum here."
"Hey Ba Reum, do you know where Moo Chi is?" detective Sang asked, his voice sounding very edgy and nervous, barely more then an hurried whisper.
"Moo Chi, no, I haven't seen him for a couple of days. Why?" Ba Reum asked confused. Why would Sang call him about Moo Chi.
"Well, yesterday he had a breakthrough with the case and afterwards he suddenly disappeared."
"Did he say what he found out?" Ba Reum asked, both interested and worried. If the organisation found out about the breakthrough.
There was a small hesitation on the other side of the line.
"We just found out about how your mother connects to a possible suspect."
"What?" Ba Reum exclaimed, because he hadn't found out the connection himself yet. His friends were giving him funny looks, but he gestured at them that it was all okay. He stood a bit further
"What is the connection?" he could hear detective Sang lick his licks before he answered.
"Your mother was once married to the suspect." And suddenly Ba Reum remembered the name; Kim Dong Huyn. His mother never really mentioned him often, because he had broken her heart, but it was true they shared the name, her ex-husband and that man.
"I'm coming over to the precinct. Please don't mention this to anyone." Ba Reum said, ending the phone call without giving detective Sang a change to protest.
He put his phone back in his pocket and hurriedly joined his friends.
"Guys, I gotta go." He said to everyone. They all looked surprised at this sudden announcement. The day before they had decided that they would make sure Bong Yi's house would be ready to welcome back halmoni with a small get together and that they would all help.
Before Ba Reum could run off Chi Kook grabbed him by the arm, effectively stopping him.
"It has nothing to do with your mother?" Chi Ki asked worried, looking Ba Reum in the eyes.
"What?" Ba Reum asked surprised, "no, it has to do with work. I have to go check in real quick." Ba Reum explained.
"But you are still on leave?" Dong Koo said.
"Yeah, but they can't find some evidence, and I was responsible for putting it in it's place, so they just asked me to quickly check in." Ba Reum quickly lied. He surpressed the small feeling of guilt, thinking that it was all for the best not to pull his friends anymore in this case, all for their safety.
"Okay, we'll expect you back afterwards though." Chi Kook said, letting Ba Reum go, feeling slightly worried about his friends. He could just feel that the explanation wasn't complete, but he had to show trust in Ba Reum, as a friend.
When Ba Reum was near the police station, he texted detective Sang to meet him around the corner, just to make sure no one saw him and detective Sang together.
Ba Reum waited a few minutes in the alley before detective Sang came.
"So, what was he working on before he left?" Ba Reum asked. Detective Sang looked at the sides, making sure no one was watching them.
"He was just in front of his laptop, and the next moment he was gone. I tried to call him, but his cell is off." Sang explained, "it was like he had disappeared into thin air".
"Why did you call me? Why not ask someone in the station?" Ba Reum asked, wondering how much they already suspected, because detective Sang hadn't been difficult to convince to meet in private.
"We think that there is a leak in the precint, or at least detective Ko thinks so." Ba Reum nodded at the explanation. It seemed that he reached that conclusion already.
"Can you get me the laptop, I might be able to get some information from it?" Ba Reum asked. Sang nodded.
"I can try, just wait here a moment." Detective Sang went back to the station. It didn't take long until he returned with the laptop, handing it over to Ba Reum.
"I can't stay, they called me in, and it would be suspicious if I didn't come." Detective Sang said, hating having to trust Ba Reum for this, but this seemed to be the one person who couldn't be the leak, seeing what happened to his mother.
Ba Reum nodded and took the laptop with him to the car. He didn't check it yet, wanting to be somewhere private before he looked it through. He didn't know if it was going to be easy to hack into it, or if he needed some extra material he kept at home.
So he drove to his place, trying to curb his curiosity.
When he arrived home, an icon on his computer was flashing. He opened the program and saw that his spying software had activated. He put Moo Chi's laptop down and opened the video file of Cho Young Shin's office.
When he looked at the movie, he couldn't believe his luck. He was so surprised that it had taken him less then 24 hour to get this proof. A meeting of her with some key Oz members, discussing the murders.
The conversation made it clear that they had witnessed all of the murders and had just let them happen, never trying to stop them and worse, tried to bury all evidence that could lead towards the assailants.
He made sure to have some back-ups ready. Seeing how the group tried to silence every witness, he would have to find a way to distribute this widely and fast. For now he put it to the side. He would try to work out something fast, for now, he would have to check out Moo Chi's laptop, making sure that nothing had happened to him.
If it was true that he had found out about the connection with his mother, OZ would deign him dangerous, and they had proven to be ruthless in their goal of trying to hide all evidence.
He opened the laptop and saw it was password protected. It only took him two tries before he found the right one. Moo Chi was not safe in this. He didn't even have to TRY to hack this.
He saw the movie immediately, Moo Chi had never closed it when he went away.
Father Ko tied. Ba Reum looked a second at the movie and then he saw it. That crucifix. He knew which church this was. Ba Reum hoped that Moo Chi wouldn't know this church and if he knew, that he would think twice before confronting these people alone, but detective Ko was reckless.
He had to go check it out. They would kill without mercy, he was sure of it. It was just that one step further. Letting someone getting away with murder and even assisting them is not that much different then actually wielding the knife.
Of course, it could mean putting himself into the dangerzone, so he had to make sure that his mother would be safe if something happened to him.
He quickly send a secured mail to Yo Han with inside all the movies and evidence he had gathered.
He tried to call Yo Han, but he was send to the voicemail. He spoke in a message.
He said he was going to do something stupid and if he didn't return in a couple of days to try to get this out in the open as quickly and loudly as possible. He also asked to activate the plan to fake his mother's death, of course using codewords, just in case the line was being monitored.
He had been feeling paranoid lately, and it wasn't getting better. If OZ was prepared to kidnap people, than nothing would stop them from making sure his mother wouldn't talk.
From the moment that Moo Chi had seen the small movie clip of his brother, his heart had started to pound and he could just think about one thing. He would search his brother and free him.
He was all he had left and no one was allowed to touch him.
He would kill the motherfuckers who though that they could harm his brother, who already had been through so much because of Moo Chi.
He had so little clues to work this out on.
The email address had been protected and seeing how this case has been sabotaged all over, he didn't dare to trust anyone with helping him finding out it's source and he wasn't IT savvy at all.
All he had was the background of the movie. It was difficult to see, just a split second, but he spotted a crucifix in one of the corners and a cracked wall in the other. He hoped that his hunch was right and started to search for abandoned churches in the neighbourhood.
He was suspicious about being followed, afraid that they would notice his approach and kill his brother to get rid of the witnesses.
But he knew the church. He had seen it before. It had been a case some years before. A paedophilic Priester had been found out in that church and the goers had been so embarrassed about not finding it out sooner and going to the same place as that pervert preached, they had stopped going. Since then, that church had been abandoned.
Hong Ju had done a piece on it a couple of years ago and he recognized the crucifix from that.
He arrived at the church and snuck inside from the back door, and sure enough, he could see his brother, tied up in a chair, blindfolded, two people surrounding him.