THE OTHER SIDE
OF
THE DOOR
FINDING THE TRUTH
ABOUT
THE TERRORIST
At the NCI headquarters, Captain Cho Seok Hoon of the Storming Unit reported about an incriminating piece of evidence, a video that they had discovered. He thought the person on the ‘JUPITR Program’ matched the profile of the terrorist.
     
DR
JANG JI HO
THE
MICROBIOLOGIST
In the video, a scientist, Dr Jang Ji Ho, was seen to be addressing the council of officials from the Ministry of National Defence. His ominous remarks, thought to be incendiary, seemed suspicious.
‘The US forces have been carrying a huge amount of anthrax into their operating base in South Korea. That could kill millions of people. What would have happened if it was carried out by North Korea?’ If anthrax bacteria spreads in parks or public facilities as a result of an attack on unspecified individuals, thousands - no, millions would die!’
But, most of the population were far removed from the idea of an anthrax attack.
     
Dr Jang Ji Ho was a likely suspect. Team Leader Kang was interested to know about his speeches before the forest-cum-park was created. Probably, if his speeches had been inflammatory, he would be the prime suspect.
  The very dependable Nana Wang had the answer. The microbiologist wanted to build a biochemistry research centre with the land and money that would be allocated for the park. Was it possible that a conflict on the rational distribution of resources had occurred?      It was learnt that the council had rejected his violent ideas and he was removed from the National Defence and Science Institute and he was relieved of all other important responsibilities.   
At that point in time, he was working at ‘Fine’, a multi-national pharmaceutical company. Ha Sun Woo felt that it was possible that Dr Jang had an accomplice. If he was working at a pharmaceutical company, it would be easy for him to acquire anthrax bacteria.
  
Yoo Min Young reported that three more anthrax victims were added to the death toll. It was 12.00 o’clock.
 Kim Hyun Joon and Lee Han were instructed to find out more about Doctor Jang while Ha Sun Woo and the rest of the investigating officers accompanied the Team Leader to Dr Jang’s pharmaceutical firm.   
DR
JANG JI HO’S RESEARCH LABORATORY
(PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANY)
Team Leader Kang had Dr Jang’s research laboratory searched but there had been no unusual activity or signs of anthrax being grown or cultured there.
One significant piece of information was that he had not reported for work for a few days.
        
DR
JANG JI HO
PRIVATE
RESEARCH LABORATORY
The other pair, upon arrival at Dr Jang’s huge house, discovered he had not left his house for a long period of time. They could easily access the premises because the gate and one of the doors were unlocked. They snooped around a bit.
But someone was monitoring their movements through the CCTV.
     
Kim Hyun Joon reported to Ha Sun Woo that somehow he felt something was not right. The front door was unlocked.
   
Lee Han discovered a hidden door to a secret laboratory. Obviously driven by curiosity and impetuosity, he descended the dark flight of stairs which led to the basement laboratory. It had a store of scientific equipment used for conducting experiments.
     
Lee Han happened upon some blood stains on the floor.
          The man wanted to finish him off but an alarm was tripped by the other intruder. Deciding to let Lee Han die by anthrax infection, he smashed a vial of anthrax on the floor.   At that point, the assailant surreptitiously fled the laboratory. 
THE
OTHER SIDE OF THE DOOR
   
On reaching the laboratory, Kim Hyun Joon peered through
the rectangular glass screen of the metal door.
 Lee Han suddenly appeared and quickly bolted himself behind the closed door. He revealed that the place had been exposed to anthrax bacteria. Not wanting anyone to be infected nor the contamination to spread, he pleaded with Kim Hyun Joon to leave. Needless to say, Kim Hyun Joon did not find his act remotely amusing.         
‘What? The dumbfounded man sputtered. The other NCI team members were notified of the new development.
Upon learning of the situation, the shocked NCI members quickly notified all the relevant organizations to contain the spread of the bacteria.
     
Kim Hyun Joon felt that the younger NCI member’s self-sacrifice to be incomprehensible. He wanted him to unlock the door. From his expression, it was impossible to tell whether Kim Hyun Joon was more angry or more fearful for Lee Han. Fearfully furious.
  
Bellowing hoarsely with anger, he resembled an angry, fuming bull who was about to charge at the door. Despite threatening to break down the door, he knew that he was powerless to do so. Kicking and banging furiously at the iron door would be futile.
     The tension was unbearable. Kim Hyun Joon went ballistic. ‘If you don’t want me to beat you, get out of there right now!’ Kim Hyun Joon thundered. Strained brother relationship. Just like siblings. He seemed to have gone overboard, like a tense and worried older brother lashing out furiously at his defiant, incorrigible and wayward younger brother.    One is drawn to the hostile scene. It would have been entertaining and a tad ridiculous had the audience not felt the urgency and the emotions that Kim Hyun Joon felt.
Normally, he was the one to kick open the door but now he felt as helpless as a baby. The sense of desperation and frustration was unmistakable in his voice, unless one was disabled. He sounded as if he wanted to pummel the younger profiler to death or tear out his throat!
The waves of rage in the wild beast must have terrified the viewers. His face was scrunched up as he thundered at the poor, helpless fellow who was staring at him from the other side of the door.
If one had not known the true situation, one would have thought that the younger NCI member was his sworn enemy. Kim Hyun Joon was fearful of history repeating itself. His thoughts must have wheeled back many months to the day he lost one beloved teammate to the bomb explosion, and he was afraid of losing another to anthrax attack. Imagine the time frame it took for him to recover from his previous trauma.
It gets people into thinking about being caught in such intense moments.  
Lee Han addressed him as ‘Hyung’ (older brother) which created a unique bond between them. It was incredibly heart-warming to watch the interaction between the two: the younger man trying to pacify the other more experienced man by telling him that he was not going to die. Absurd as it may sound, Lee Han stated that he, a genius equipped with a 187 IQ, should be able to solve problems.
        
Tears welled up in Kim Hyun Joon’s eyes. He turned away so that the other man could not see them.
      The hospital ambulance, medical staff, security people, police and NCI members soon arrived to assess, investigate and control the situation.     Kim Hyun Joon told Lee Han to wait for him as he was going to get help.     
But what secret did Lee Han hide from him? Lee Han did not tell him that he had also been stabbed and he was bleeding!
Had he told the other profiler at the beginning about his wound, the situation that followed would have turned out differently.
The pain he suffered did not deprive him of his intellectual powers and resourcefulness. Being fighting fit, he was able to find some cotton wool to stop the bleeding of what he thought was just a surface wound.
      CONTAGION
Kim Hyun Joon had already taken the lead to make preparations to get Lee Han out of the infected laboratory. He instructed the young man to get ready for the men in protective suits to help him.
  
To Kim Hyun Joon’s chagrin and fury, the stubborn NCI member rejected his help. Stubborn was too mild a term. He was pigheaded. Bulheaded. He was single-minded in his desire to help in the investigation.
   Ha Sun Woo had a no-nonsense approach to solving crimes. She understood that Lee Han would be of great help to the case. Catching hold of Kim Hyun Joon’s hand, she tried to reason with him. She was logical. There was less than seven hours left for all the victims so there’s no point for Lee Han to be sent to the hospital. All would become casualties unless they could find a clue about the anthrax variant and its antibody or vaccine.    It was not that Kim Hyun Joon was not logical. For him, there was always the ‘What-If’ scenario. ‘What if Lee Han was not able to find a clue?’ questioned the tense NCI profiler.   
Unable to get the support of the determined lady profiler, he turned to appeal to the Team Leader. Kim Hyun Joon argued that it was abhorrent for him to watch another colleague die before his very eyes again.
But, to his consternation and disbelief, the unemotional and cold Team Leader Kang, who had been diagnosed with PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disoder) absently responded, ‘Let’s trust Han. He was dealing with reality. To him, there was no dilemma or controversy over his utilitarian approach to the problem. If he felt a wave of guilt, he did not show it.
        Yoo Min Young was obviously saddened but she offered no opinions.         Nana Wang informed them that the CCTV was already connected to the screen. Ha Sun Woo lost no time in requesting Lee Han to describe the laboratory.  
Lee Han reported on the gruesome scene of the slaughter: the trail of congealed blood from the culture room and Dr Jang Ji Ho’s fractured skull.
A purple discolouration had appeared on the corpse. His educated guess was the scientist must have been dead for a few days.
        
Referring to his reports on the case, Kim Hyun Joon figured out that Dr Jang was already dead before his own physical confrontation with the masked unsub.
By then, the NCI profilers had probably guessed that Lee Han had some physical injury but it was impossible to get him out as the outside premises had not been cleaned up by the medical personnel.
     The eerily calm Team Leader and the cool-headed, Ha Sun Woo allowed the investigation to continue. Ha Sun Woo asked him to find Dr Jang’s accomplice.  
He approached the two work desks and revealed that one was messy and the other was very organised.
  
THE
APPRENTICE
LEE
SEOK HAN
One desk occupant, Lee Seok Han, had a master’s degree in Microbiology from Hankuk University. An interesting detail was he had been under the supervision of Dr. Jang Ji Ho.
    
DEFENSIVE WRITING STYLE
Writing style. Lee Han tried analysing Lee Seok Han’s personality based on his writing style. The writing style of the two persons using the desks differed.
The style gave a unique insight into Lee Seok Han’s personality. The genius in Lee Han deemed that Lee Seok Han had a defensive writing style as his sentences were defensive, not offensive. It meant that he was not a dominant personality but was subordinate to someone more dominant. He gleaned from the written sentences that the man held no strong opinions, meaning he was not the type to lead a crime.
     
Nana Wang found an image of a man for Lee Han but it was not a good fit as he did not have the eyes of the killer.
      
HUMAN
GUINEA PIGS
Lee Han made a chilling discovery. There was a note on some clinical tests.
‘Day 5 – rats, Day 15 – dogs, Day 30 – humans’
‘When you consider the clinical test process, you first test on rats, then on bigger mammals. The next one would be a simple test on humans.’
There was also a note on ‘ciprofloxacine’, an antibiotic that was used after anthrax exposure to prevent infection.
       
The pertinent question was ‘Does it mean that the suspect conducted clinical tests on humans prior to the first full-blown test?
If so, there should have been patients with anthrax infections. Ha Sun Woo asserted that there were no confirmed cases.
  
Kim Hyun Joon deduced that neither the patients nor the doctors realised it was anthrax infection. He explained that when MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) spread, no one knew that the first patient had MERS.
  
He requested Nana Wang to find out if anyone died from acute lung disease within the last three days.
Based on the database, she revealed that three days previously, three patients in three different emergency rooms fell into a coma and died from lung complications.       
The intelligent profiler, Kim Hyun Joon, wanted confirmation on whether they were at the same location that day.
 
The startling answer soon arrived. The deceased trio worked as event staff for a private company, ‘Eagle Security’ at the same location.
A
TWISTED MIND
CHOI
HO SUNG
More surprising news followed. The head of the company, Choi Ho Sung, a former soldier, had worked with Dr. Jang for 4 years - between 2009 and 2013 at The Agency For Development.
     
Nana Wang sent a photo for Lee Han to identify. He was positive that the man was the assailant. To Kim Hyun Joon’s surprise, the man was the unsub that he had been chasing previously.
      |
DR.
JANG AND THE KILLER
Dr Jang Ji Ho and Choi Ho Sung had been fighting over their opposing stands on the use of anthrax.
When Choi demanded to know why the scientist had changed his mind, Dr Jang told him that he had no intentions of killing anyone whatsoever.
  
DR
JANG: THE NEED FOR CHAOS
Killer Choi had argued that during the conference for the Ministry of National defence, Dr Jang had a totally aggressive stand. ‘South Korea needed to be enveloped in chaos. People needed to think that war is coming again’.
Was Dr Jang Ji Ho a scientist with revolutionary or dangerous ideas? With chaos, the people would deteriorate into chaotic behaviour and the country would be in a vulnerable position. That meant the government might risk losing control. Even if he was a dreamer, Dr Jang’s nightmare scenario had painted him as a dangerous thinker.
 
Dr Jang had created a new strain of anthrax bacteria for his ‘chaos’ purpose. The country had to be prepared. He believed that nuclear weapons could only be overcome by stronger nuclear weapons. Likewise, a new or more virulent strain of anthrax bacteria must be cultured. But, the anthrax spores should not be weaponised. Whatever his ideals were, his moral integrity should not be suspect.
He emphasized that his purpose was not war but to protect the nation from bioterrorism.        
But the other man’s ethics were certainly in doubt. The outraged former military man accused Dr Jang of being capricious, of changing his mind from his initial stand. Perhaps, their vastly differing stands had stemmed from a misunderstanding.
It seemed that Choi Ho Sung stood poised to change the political situation with his senseless display of power with the new anthrax strains. Realising that Dr. Jang would not conform to his thinking, he accused Dr Jang of being a traitor and a coward.
   
With that, he smashed a heavy cylindrical object against Dr Jang’s head. The latter slumped to the ground. There was no violent struggle but the frenzied attack that followed was vicious. The repeated battering showed the ruthless violence of the killer. It seemed as if he wanted to beat his victim to a bloody pulp.
His savage brutality probably sends shivers of fear through the audience.
     |
A
SUMMARY
OF
THE
SITUATION
Team Leader Kang requested them to summarize the situation. They
were getting to be a cohesive unit as there was input from everyone.
Dr Jang was likely murdered before the terrorist attack because he opposed Choi Ho Sung’s plan.
Fear was a powerful weapon that controls people. Lee Seok Han was probably listening to Choi Ho Sung’s orders out of fear.
    Kim Hyun Joon wanted more information on Choi Ho Sung. 
Nana Wang provided the details. His specialty in the military
was Intelligence. He was sent overseas when he was in his 20s.
Why did he leave the military? When he was a Sergeant Major, he
beat up a member in his unit for incompetence. It meant he had a proclivity
to violence.
He was a performance-oriented type who was very self-centred.
And once, he had made the decision, he would see things to the end. A
persistent man with an all-consuming and mindless vision.
       Kim Hyun Joon posed a question: ‘If Choi Ho Sung was prepared for terrorist attacks, he probably won’t stop at one. What would be his next target?’   
Nana Wang reported that the Choi Ho Sung’s data had been classified by the government. He had been named ‘Code Black’ and his data was top secret as access had been blocked.
Although they faced a blank wall, they had already got an important lead on the case.
 Meanwhile, the NCI members were relieved to learn that the area had been cleaned up and the medical personnel would be entering the contaminated laboratory. Lee Han would soon be sent to the hospital.    |