CHAPTER 12 – SHOCK AND AWE
Woo Bin's fingers flew over the keyboard in the darkened room, a sigh escaping at the thought of the long night ahead of him. He'd already put in a long day at the office, engaged in the legal as well as the not-so-legal aspects of Song Enterprises, and it would be a good while yet before he could retreat to the comfort of his bed.
But he was getting used to that.
He could hardly believe that three months had passed since he began his undercover work for the police, but what really surprised him was how routine it had become to juggle all these roles, all the different faces he had to wear now.
By day he attended to the legitimate business of the company, anything from signing contracts with the large companies that hired them for major construction projects, to meeting with stockholders, to overseeing job sites.
Interspersed between such mundane duties, there were bribes to be paid to the people with the right permits, the cover ups of injured workers to be carried out by cash or by threat, the needs of particular "clients" – mostly drug dealers – to be attended to.
When his father had told him he wanted Woo Bin to be involved in all aspects of the business, he meant it. But at night, after leaving his duties under the guise of partying or hanging out with F4, he slipped back into the offices, to gather the evidence of what had transpired during the day and transmit it to his contact, Kwon Young Sool.
He had been fairly successful thus far. His position in both the business and the jopok afforded him access to information that no one else could have obtained. He had had to be careful how and when he shared this with the police – too many busts too quickly would be sure to create suspicion that might eventually swing towards him – but they had managed to start making some progress at frustrating his father's work without letting it look like anything more than a run of bad luck.
Recently, he had begun taking a little more risk, sneaking into his father's own office, to access the Brick Wall's personal computer. It was the most direct route for him to begin peeling back the digital layers of false records, shell companies, and dead ends that had for so long protected the money laundering which was the core of Song Enterprises' wealth, enabling their more peripheral activities.
He had found as he had begun delving into the cybernetic defense systems that held his world together, that this was an area he was surprisingly talented at. He seemed to have an instinct with computer systems that he might never have discovered if he'd continued to spend all his time clubbing and playing around. His nighttime hacks were actually the most fun he had these days.
Woo Bin squinted at his watch in the dim light of the monitor as he allowed himself a long yawn. Three AM? Time to call it a night. He rubbed his eyes and began to cover up his digital tracks before closing out for the night, when he stumbled across an intriguing new file, one buried so deeply he wondered how even his father accessed it.
He decided to forestall his craving for sleep for just one more look. As he swiftly glanced over the data it contained, his exhaustion washed away in a flood of adrenaline. His breath felt stuck in his chest as though he had been physically stunned. Surely, he was not seeing what he thought he was seeing. Surely, not even his father could do such a thing.
Woo Bin read the documents more carefully, making sure that he had not simply misunderstood as a result of fatigue. Then he scanned them a third time, memorizing as much information as he could. Gingerly, he closed out of the system and shut it down. He slipped out to his own office, where he kept a cot and a change of clothes on hand just for nights like this. Woo Bin sat down on the cot, still shaking slightly from shock.
He knew he would get no sleep this night.
oOo
A/N – Hey, look at that! I managed an update! Yay, me! I promise the next one won't be far off!