The week the Daegu file arrived was also the week that everything else arrived at once.
The Daegu file came on Monday, as promised. It was three hundred and twelve pages of twelve-year-old documentation: the initial audit flags, the Choi Byungsu investigation memo, the evidence assessment, the decision to close without referral, and the recommendations that had been filed and, as far as anyone could tell, never acted upon. Reading it was the specific experience of watching a future take shape from a past that had not been taken seriously enough.
On Tuesday, the facilities department cross-reference came back with a preliminary match. A contract processing officer named Kwon Jisoo, who had handled three of the six infrastructure contracts during the relevant period and whose departure from the facilities department eighteen months ago was documented as a voluntary resignation for personal reasons. His last known employment was at a building services company in Seongbuk-gu.
