13. Need to Know
NEED TO KNOW
LIAM — PARIS
The briefing room was a conference space off the hotel lobby that Jason’s team had swept an hour earlier.
No devices, no staff access, a folding table pulled into the center and twelve chairs arranged around it with the purposeful informality of a military situation room trying not to look like one.
I’d asked for nine AM. Everyone was seated by eight fifty-five, which told Aidan and me something useful about the team and their concerns.
“Aidan has collected a lot of personnel information as well as background on the emotional reality all of you face as part of a major musical act. Now I’m going to get into the tactical methods we’re going to implement.”
Sunny had brought coffee and a printed agenda she hadn’t shared in advance.
It was clearly a tour manager’s instinct to stay one step ahead.
Jason sat with his hands folded, watching the door until it closed.
Eun-ji had her tablet open and her reading glasses already on.
The styling team occupied one side of the table — Sang-hoon; Mina, the second stylist; Wan-suk, the makeup artist; and Du-ri, the wardrobe mistress.
The other tech workers sat across from them.
The group members were not present; this wasn’t for them.
Grace Han sat at the far end with a notebook already open.
She’d drawn a line down the center of the page, dividing it into two columns.
The two regular Starhouse security officers stood by the wall, even though I’d invited them to take seats.
Both were former Korean soldiers, young and fit, only about ten years older than the singers they were protecting.
I started with the package.
“Yesterday we found an unauthorized item in Jin’s dressing room at the Accor Arena.
A framed photograph, taken backstage at Cannes, with written text that indicated surveillance and intent.
” I kept my voice neutral, factual. “Jason’s team has submitted it to the gendarmerie for forensic processing.
We are treating this as a credible escalation, not an isolated incident. ”
The room absorbed that quietly. Eun-ji’s pen stopped moving. The wardrobe mistress looked at Sang-hoon.
“What that means operationally,” I continued, “is that someone had access to two venues. Cannes and Paris. They photographed Jin during a costume change, which means backstage access, not just a ticket. And they had a key card or a working knowledge of the dressing room assignment system at Accor, because Jin’s room was locked. ”
“All the dressing room assignments come from the venue,” Sunny said. “We submit the rider three weeks in advance. Anyone on the Starhouse management team has access to that document. Unfortunately the system only tracks changes to forms, not who reads them.”
I pulled up the venue layout on the screen behind me. “For now, here’s what changes.”
I walked them through it methodically. The new credential rotation, the two-person rule for any room access, the revised transport windows.
Every external commitment would now be pre-cleared through Jason’s team twenty-four hours in advance.
Any gift packages, flowers, or deliveries would be intercepted at the building’s loading dock, not at the stage door, and X-rayed before processing.
Jason addressed his two officers. “You both can alternate receiving gifts at the loading dock and standing guard outside the dressing rooms. I’ll set up a rotation with you.” Both nodded.
“What about in-person press?” Grace asked. She had been writing steadily. Not shorthand, I noticed, but full sentences. She’d divided her columns neatly: protocol on the left, what looked like timing/access on the right.
“In-person press is the highest-exposure element,” I said. “Walk us through how that currently works.”
She looked up, pen resting in the groove of the notebook’s spine.
“Radio and television interviews are pre-scheduled, location is confirmed forty-eight hours out. Print and online features come through Eun-ji’s office, and the approved journalist is credentialed through Starhouse.
That credential gets them past the perimeter, to a designated interview room.
The members move from their holding area to the interview room and back. They don’t pass through public space.”
“Who issues the journalist credentials?”
“My office,” Eun-ji said. “The request comes in, my team verifies against the publication’s masthead, I approve, and Grace coordinates the logistics. Arrival time, escort from the lobby, which member or members they’re seeing.”
I looked at Grace. “So you receive the final approved credential and manage movement on the day.”
“Yes. I’m usually the first person the journalist meets. I escort them to the room, stay for the interview in case translation is needed, and escort them back out.”
“Going forward,” I said, “any journalist who hasn’t been through the standard verification process gets a secondary check. Even if they’re already credentialed. One phone call, twenty minutes. Non-negotiable.”
Grace wrote that down: left column, two lines. She underlined something.
“Any questions before I continue?”
The technical director asked, “Any changes to what we do at rehearsal?”
“I’m sure you already do, but double-check all the mechanics—the lighting grid, the parts of the stage that go up and down, and the props that fly in from the site.”
Du-ri, the wardrobe mistress, raised her hand. “The costume transport between venues — is that changing?”
“It’s under review.” I made a note. “Sunny, I want you to sit down with Aidan and me about that. The transport chain has some gaps we’ll want to walk through.”
She nodded, and wrote something on her printed agenda.
“The broader picture,” I said. “Someone is planning something. Our thinking is that since they didn’t get what they wanted in Cannes, they’re recalibrating. That means we have time, but not unlimited time.”
I looked around the table. “I need everyone in this room paying attention to things that seem slightly off. Not wrong, not alarming. Just slightly off. A person you don’t recognize in a space where they should be recognizable.
A question someone asks that’s more specific than it needs to be.
A schedule detail mentioned somewhere it shouldn’t have been mentioned. ”
The room was very quiet.
“We are not a police investigation,” I said. “We are a security team protecting five people. That means our job is to narrow the space in which something can go wrong. Every person in this room helps do that by being present and paying attention.”
I looked at Grace. “Aidan will send you the written protocol summary after this. You shouldn’t have to work from handwritten notes.”
She looked up from her notebook. “Thank you.” A brief pause, pen still in her hand. “Should I be translating all of this for the members, or a simplified version?”
“Simplified,” I said. “They need to know the procedures that affect them directly. They don’t need to know the full threat picture before a show.” I picked up my notes. “I’ll give you a summary sheet. Work from that.”
She nodded and went back to writing.
Eun-ji closed her tablet. “Are we done?”
“One more thing.” I waited until I had the whole table.
“Nobody discusses this outside this room. Not with other staff, not with the members’ families, not with anyone who wasn’t here today.
If you receive a question about security arrangements from anyone, including people at Starhouse who outrank you, you refer them to me or to Sunny. ”
A beat of silence. “We’re done,” I said.