Seoul Set Up

Chapter 11

Sang Myung-Ki was all ready for his meeting with his business executives. He glanced at the wall clock. It was 8:45 a.m. and the meeting was slated for 10:a.m. Shortly, he would be on his way to attend the meeting which would kick start the Seoul Industrial Project. His chauffeur was already awaiting him outside as usual. Due to the nature of the meeting, he had decided not to go with securities and personal escorts except his chauffeur who doubled as his personal security guard as well. He did this every time he had to secret meetings and he did not want to attract any attention, especially that of the media to his activities.

That morning was no different than other morning which he had held his secret business meetings. Sixty-two year old Sang Myung-Ki had been the Chief Executive officer of the company he founded twenty-seven years ago. Despite his position as a well respected man who rose from the post of an operational manager in of one South Korea's defunct corporations to establish what was today, the biggest corporation in the country, he was never far from controversy with detestable ability to utter unguided utterances in public and to issue subtle threats to his rivals via the media. He hated losing but many times, he had lost contracts worth millions to Taewoon Corporation, his biggest rival in the production industry. With Choi Taewoon now dead, he was certain he would have his place at the top echelon of the production industries for as long as he wanted. Taewoon Corporation wasn't rising anytime soon and he knew it, not with an eighteen year old boy in charge.

However, he had realized the need to guard his utterances and desists from threatening his rivals through the media after he was invited by the police and questioned over the death of Taewoon Choi and his wife, Julia Choi. The police showed him some newspapers in which he appeared to have suggested that Taewoon would go down with his bid if he didn't step down the bid. These and many more of his unguided utterance, he was told, had linked him to the controversial death of the pair. Confident, that he had nothing to hide; Sang Myung-Ki had told them to carry out their investigations diligently and without fear.

He had no iota of idea what evil was lurking when he stepped into his car. Everything was just as usual until his chauffeur cum security guard drove off to Four Seasons Hotels. Four Seasons Hotels was one of the best hotels n Seoul and Sang Myung-Ki used it regularly for his secret business meetings. Sang was engrossed with a newspaper as they drove on. Many industry experts had speculated that the Seoul Project could be withdrawn from his company due to the link between him and the controversial death of Choi Taewoon. There was no way he was going to rule out that possibility, especially if the government decided to treat him as guilty until proven innocent. And that was one of the reasons he was having this meeting. So far, there had been no concrete evidence to prove that he indeed had something to do with Choi Taewoon's death other than the interviews and lots of unguided utterances he made to the media. He was keen to ensure that it remained like that. Any implication could be costly. The South Korean media was a cunning media, he knew that so well. In fact, the news paper he was going through had an exclusive on the story which questioned his involvement in the whole controversy, with all of his previous words about Choi Taewoon laid bare. He folded the newspaper and tossed it aside exasperatingly, deciding instead to focus on the meeting ahead.

They arrived at the hotel at about 9:50 a.m. The chauffeur drove straight to a private parking lot. It was an underground parking lot and there were only about five other cars there. Some security men were already on ground to escort him to the hall where the meeting was scheduled to hold. 'You can find somewhere to hang around,' Sang told the chauffeur. 'We should be done with the meeting in maximum three hours so I want you back here before then. I won't call you.' He left with the security men who were waiting for him.

An hotel security guard walked briskly into the parking lot. He walked around briefly before stopping at Sang Myung-Ki's car. He planted a knock on the driver side window of the car. Joon-woo rolled down the window and saw the security guard staring down at him and he wondered what he wanted.