Page 115 of K-Pop Double Life

“The family invitees,” I said. “Who handled those requests?”

Seo checked his notes. “Tour manager coordinates personal guest lists.”

Sunny I trusted. She’d been with Pryzm as long as they’d been a group. In addition to being Jason’s wife, she had been re-vetted for Seoul along with everyone else who had direct member access. She was also constitutionally incapable of dissembling; I’d watched her manage seven different crises on this tour and her face gave everything away.

I made a note anyway.

The equipment situation had been bothering me since the morning briefing, though, and when I found Sunny I went over it with her. We were in the corridor outside the security center, walking the route from the loading dock to the backstage wardrobe area with a schematic on my tablet.

“Walk me through equipment delivery.”

She fell into step beside me without hesitation. She’d been doing this long enough that a security professional asking logistics questions didn’t register as unusual.

“Hair and makeup supplies and costumes travel with us, in big cases that we have delivered to and from the planes. Du-ri and Wan-suk supervise that. If they run out of anything they are responsible for buying locally.”

“What else?”

“Starhouse rents any necessary extra equipment that the venue doesn’t provide. All that is done long in advance.” She paused to brush a long hair away from her face. “We usually license the pyrotechnics locally. Then any specialized lighting fixtures, rigging hardware, and so on.”

“How does that arrive?”

“We try to order from a single supply house so they coordinate deliveries. For tonight’s concert we hired everything from Hanseong Stage Systems.” She looked at her watch. “They should be coming within the next half-hour. The drivers have delivery manifests and the contractor’s authorization code. That’s how it’s always been done. Every show, every tour.”

“Have the drivers been vetted for this concert specifically?”

A pause. “I don’t — I’d have to check with the contractor. It’s not standard practice.”

“Who has the contractor’s account details? The authorization codes, the routing information for this delivery?”

“Logistics operations. Which is—” She stopped.

“Which was the team Grace Han worked for as a translator.”

Sunny didn’t answer. She didn’t need to.

I was feeling restless. I hated the idea that we were so completely in response mode; I was a Navy SEAL, after all, and I needed a mission.

“I want to look for Sara Yoon,” I told Aidan.

He looked at me. “And do what with her? Manhandle her into a police station?”

“I don’t know. I just hate waiting around for her to act.”

My husband knew me well enough not to argue. Instead he looked at his watch. “It’s three PM. Show’s at eight. You need to be back here at seven for the pre-show checks.”

I leaned over and kissed him. “I love you. See you later.”

As I walked back through the corridors of the stadium I pulled up the information we had on Sara Yoon on my iPad. Every time we arrested one of her accomplices, she dropped connection with that person. But she was smart enough to realize that eventually we’d make the connection to her. So she probably wasn’t living in her apartment anymore.

I decided to go past there anyway, just to get a sense of how she was living. I grabbed one of the drivers who had been chauffeuring people around and gave him Sara’s address, then sat in the back seat of a Genesis 90 luxury sedan.

It only took us a few minutes along the highway to reach an apartment building in Mangwon-dong, very close to the stadium along the Han river. Her building was probably about twenty years old, in a neighborhood of narrow residential streets opening onto busier commercial roads. It was the right kind of neighborhood for a thirty-something woman with a good job in an arts-related area. Nothing to raise suspicion at Starhouse that she was living above her means.

I left the car and driver waiting and walked around for a few minutes, getting a sense of the place. Intuitively I knew she wasn’t there, but it helped me understand her.

Though I was six-four and broad-shouldered, I had mastered the art of blending in among the people around me. I slouched and always put myself in the middle of a crowd, often groups of young office workers focused on their phones.

I knew from my notes that Sara was a Starbucks lover, so I ducked into the coffee shop closest to her apartment, located right next to the stall of an older woman selling vegetables. I pulled up Sara’s picture on my phone. To me, she looked distinctive, with long hair dyed a bright blonde, and I hoped one of the baristas might recognize her.