The Reunion

♣ Chapter 2

Joowon reached into her pocket and took out a square tin case that fit into the palm of her hand. She opened it and popped a fingernail-sized candy into her mouth. A crack echoed as she chewed it. It was a habit she’d formed when she tried to quit smoking, but now she couldn’t quit eating candies.

The sharp flavor of mint spread through her mouth.

“Joowon Kang, what’s up?” Yonghyeon asked. “Something on your mind?”

He was Joowon’s partner, and her first mentor. As they had been through a lot of ups and downs for many years, he knew Joowon better than anybody else on the team. Instead of replying, Joowon picked up a small pocket knife that was lying on a desk. She moved quickly toward the area where her gaze had been fixed.

There was a foldable mattress in the corner of the room and Joowon began feeling around the mattress, pressing here and there. Yonghyeon got close to Joowon to see what she was up to.

“This right here...,” Joowon muttered, unfolding the blade from the knife. “I know it’s wrong to have prejudices, but...”

She started to cut through the mattress without hesitation, then shoved her hands through the hole. Bingo. There it was.

“Criminals don’t usually draw the line at a single crime, so...”

Joowon pulled out a rolled plastic bag from the mattress. Yonghyeon took it and checked the contents.

“Look at this son of a... He’s a druggie too?!”

Joowon just shrugged.

***

“This is the organization chart of the scammers. As you can see, once the fake bankbook suppliers come up with the book and phone number, the first call center initiates the plan of action by sending text messages and responding to the victims by taking the call. They then transfer the victims’ contact info to another call center and collect their personal information.

“The man we took in this time, Dongyoung Lee, is in charge of running the call centers. Once he gathers the money through the cash mule, he hands it and the ledger to the general manager of the organization. He said he gets the contact time and location through designated phones from them. We have already secured those phones and validated his testimony with the others.”

“And the ringleader thing is in China right now?”

“Yes, sir. His name is Gwangsoo Choi, age 29. He’s got a long rap sheet, from rape, burglary, assault... the list goes on. We got his address from his internet and cell phone service provider, but when we checked his social security number with the Immigration Bureau, they said he’d flown out to China.

“It looks like he’s going back and forth between China and Korea running this business, and that his primary residence is in China, where they have their headquarters. It’s said he also visits Korea for visa purposes, but none of our perpetrators have ever seen him.”

“What about the location of the office in China?”

Joowon shook her head as she stood in front of the briefing materials.

“Most of the lower-ranking members did visit the office in China when they first joined the gang, but they were driven many miles in private vehicles, so they don’t know the exact location. The good news is, after Dongyoung Lee spoke to his family, he’s been cooperating well with us. I think we might have a shot if we make the best use of him, sir.”

“Sure,” said Giseok, laying the groundwork for the next steps. “Why don’t we ambush Gwangsoo Choi during the handoff instead of tracing his whereabouts? Once we do catch him, we’ll cooperate with Interpol and the Chinese police to bring this whole thing down.”

The scale of the operation was much larger than they had anticipated, maybe big enough to fulfill the team’s quota for the year.

“We also ran urine tests on the ones we brought in today. They tested negative for meth, but positive for THC. They say it’s not part of their business, but they’ve been vaping marijuana recreationally. They were carrying only a small amount, and we found records of them purchasing the vape juice through social media.”

“Ugh, this just keeps getting better and better.”

“I requested further records from the cyber investigation department, and, obviously, the social media account was using a proxy server. The merchant usually sells liquid marijuana and synthetic drugs. During questioning, our guests said they never met the seller in person as the package is delivered via courier.”

“I guess we’ll have to purchase it directly. Tracing something from the courier service could be a fool’s errand.”

A silence fell over the room when Giseok finished speaking, broken by sighs from the team. Everyone was worn out from writing reports on testimonies and confessions.

Joowon, feeling awkward, rubbed the back of her neck. The team had been trying to crack the phishing case for months, and when they finally did, Joowon found a breadcrumb trail to another major case. Several more months of work now stretched before them. No one was happy to hear it.

“But sir, are we going to take this case as well? It’s been almost two months since I had a decent sleep in my own bed.” Next to Yonghyeon, Sunggook started to complain. “My daughter even said her goodbyes to me the other day when I stopped by at the house to get my underwear. She said she thought I moved out!”

Although the detectives had known what they’d signed up for when they transferred to this team, it wasn’t the first time they’d vented such complaints. The squad had been asking for more manpower for many years. Now in her seventh year with the unit, Joowon was still the youngest member of the squad. As the Violent Crimes Unit demanded much both mentally and physically, no one would accept the offer to join the crew.

Investigative funds barely covered travel expenses, and because they always worked in the field, it was difficult to work toward a promotion, even as they risked their lives daily. If they mishandled the suspects, the media would tar and feather them for violating human rights. And that was just the beginning.

Unless you were an unfeeling robot, it was some of the most stressful work there was. And, despite spending most of their time in the field, the amount of paperwork they had to do was insane. For the scam call case alone, they had already filed over ten thousand pages of records.

“So what? Just drop it? This precinct doesn’t have a separate narcotics team. If we don’t take this case, who will?! Are you suggesting we do nothing about it?!”

“Boss, they wouldn’t be saying this if they weren’t exhausted.” Jaepil, second-in-command, stepped in to ease the tension.

“What do you suggest? Should I go beg the chief to take this case away from us? Since we have other fish to catch, should I ask for another team to catch the one we already have in a net? Is that what you want?” Giseok’s voice grew louder as he spoke, but that was just the way he talked.

Sunggook just gritted his teeth. All of a sudden, everyone felt like they were walking on thin ice.

Giseok sighed. “I know things have been hard lately, but we’re this close to closing the case we’ve been pursuing since last year. We gotta finish strong!”

No one said anything.

“All right, let’s call it a day today. Get home, get some rest, and we’ll start over fresh tomorrow. How does that sound?”

The unit was miserably silent.

“I can’t hear y’all!”

“Yes, sir.”

The meeting ended on a bitter note.

Joowon stretched as she walked out of the station.

“Looks like Joowon scored for the team again, huh?” Yonghyeon approached Joowon as he fished in his pocket for cigarettes. “Always taking us by surprise, like an ace in the hole!”

“Are you being sarcastic?”

“You’re the one who sounds sarcastic. Why the long face? You had a big win today.”

“We should’ve let the intelligence department take care of the scammers like Sunggook suggested.”

“The chief ordered us to solve this case since the media’s making a big fuss about it. What else could we do?”

Oh, right. Joowon thought. She’d almost forgotten.

“But when you see those cop movies, they’re always eager to take the case. How come we’re doing the opposite? Why can’t we cooperate with another department when we want to?”

“Thanks to that, our team’s performance is outstanding. You know my buddy in Team 2? Every time I walk past him, I just couldn’t be prouder of my team.”

“I see... You are being sarcastic.”

Yonghyeon chuckled.

“You know what? My mom had my fortune read recently, and the fortune teller said I’m destined to work a lot. I mean, out of all the luck I can get, why does it have to be related to work?! I’d be happy about it if I was a farmhand way back when, but we’re living in the twenty-first century, for Pete’s sake!”

Joowon had gone through a lot since the first day she transferred. Though the Violent Crimes Unit was always flooded with cases, Joowon had to deal with everything from serial killers to the longest unsolved case of the station. The team even called her the “work magnet” for a while.

This time too. She somehow managed to get a whiff of liquid marijuana, which notoriously isn’t supposed to have a scent.

As a rookie detective, she had been determined to catch as many bad guys as she could, but now she understood why her superior officers would sigh and complain about having more cases. She knew now that it wasn’t because they were lazy, but because they were exhausted.

“But what was I supposed to do?” Joowon mumbled. “Just pretend that I didn’t see it?” She felt like she’d done something wrong even when she’d done the right thing.

“You did a good job,” Yonghyeon replied as he lit up his cigarette. “Oh, come on. Brighten up, will ya? It’s not like you’re the only detective in the unit.”

He always understood how she felt. Joowon could only hold on to this job because she had teammates like Yonghyeon.