40. Four More Days
FOUR MORE DAYS
AIDAN — S?O PAULO
Because of my experience as a teacher before joining Liam in personal protection, he often let me take the lead in interrogations.
I had the ability to empathize with whoever I was talking to, based on years teaching English as a Second Language to immigrants in Philadelphia.
I tried to channel all that experience as I faced Kristina Mueller.
The Brazilian police had allowed me to speak with her after she’d refused to answer any of their questions. I’d interrogated enough people in my career to know the difference between someone who was scared and someone who was calculating their next lie. Mueller was both.
She sat across from me in a windowless room at the S?o Paulo police headquarters, hands cuffed to the table, a lawyer from the German consulate beside her looking like he’d rather be anywhere else.
The cut on Sang-hoon’s arm was still fresh in my mind.
Ten centimeters of evidence that this woman had come to kill Jin and nearly succeeded.
“Let’s try this again,” I said in English, keeping my voice calm. “Who hired you?”
Mueller’s lawyer started to object, but she waved him off. “I want a deal. Immunity, deportation to Germany, charges dropped.”
“Not how this works. You entered Brazil on false pretenses with intent to commit murder. You aren’t seeing daylight for a long time unless you cooperate.” I leaned forward. “So talk.”
She was silent for a long moment, weighing her options. Then: “I never met her. Everything was through encrypted messages and cryptocurrency payments.”
“Her. You’re confirming your employer was female.”
“I’m confirming nothing without a deal.”
Liam spoke from his position near the door. “We already know it’s Sara Yoon. Starhouse manager, Korean national, currently wanted by Interpol for embezzlement and conspiracy to commit murder. What we need from you is information on her network, her plans, her next move.”
Mueller’s expression flickered. Surprise, maybe, that we already knew. “If you know who she is, why do you need me?”
“Because she’s disappeared,” I said. “And you’re going to help us find her.”
“I told you, I never met her. I don’t know where she is.”
“But you know how to contact her. You know the protocols, the encryption keys, the payment methods.” I pulled out my tablet, showed her the call log from the phone we’d seized from her.
“We’re going to crack this eventually. You can make it easy and get a deal, or you can make it hard and spend the next two decades in a Brazilian prison. Your choice.”
The lawyer leaned in, whispered something in German. Mueller shook her head, then looked back at me.
“She paid me fifteen million won. Roughly ten thousand euros. Half up front, half on completion.” Her voice was flat, professional. “The job was simple. Get close to the target during the S?o Paulo show, hurt him quickly, preferably so he can’t dance again, blend back into the crew afterward.”
“How did she recruit you?”
“Dark web forum. I do freelance security work, sometimes other things when the pay is good. She found me through my portfolio, contacted me with an offer.”
“What did she tell you about the target?”
“Nothing personal. Just that he was a public figure, highly protected, and the window would be narrow.” Mueller’s jaw tightened. “She said the security was good but predictable. That if I studied the patterns from previous shows, I’d find an opening.”
“Which you did.”
“The costume change corridor. Minimal cameras, crew traffic high enough to blend in, timing predictable based on the setlist.” She looked down at her cuffed hands. “It should have worked.”
“Except for Sang-hoon,” Liam said quietly.
“Except for him.” I saw something that might have been respect on her face. “He noticed me. Most people don’t notice crew. We’re background noise. When he approached me I realized that my badge was upside down.” She shook her head. “Silly mistake.”
I filed that away. Sang-hoon’s observational skills had saved Jin’s life. “When was your last contact with Sara Yoon?”
“Two hours before the show. Confirmation that I was in position, that the payment was ready.”
“And since then?”
“Nothing. The second the job failed, she went dark. That’s standard protocol. If an asset is compromised, you cut them loose immediately.”
“So she knows we caught you.”
“She knows by now, yes. Which means she’s already repositioned, already activated a backup plan.” Mueller met my eyes. “You’re not going to stop her. She’s too careful, too well-funded. She’ll keep trying until either she succeeds or runs out of money.”
“How many other assets does she have?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t know there were other assets until I researched what had been happening on the tour. But based on the operation’s sophistication? At least three or four others, probably more.”
Liam pulled up a photo on his tablet. “Sophie Tran. Do you know her?”
Mueller studied the image. “No. But that doesn’t mean anything. These kind of operations always use isolated cells.”
“What about these two?” He showed her photos of the fireworks technician from Cannes, the makeup assistant from Paris, even the girl from the dinner in New York.
“Never seen them.”
I believed her. Sara Yoon was running this like an intelligence operation. Compartmentalized, need-to-know basis, minimal overlap between assets. Smart. And frustrating.
“Tell me about the encryption,” I said. “How did she communicate with you?”
“Signal app, but not the standard one. Custom build with additional encryption layers. Messages auto-deleted after reading. Payments through cryptocurrency, routed through multiple wallets to obscure the trail.”
“Can you access the account now?”
“No. The app was on my phone, which you confiscated. And even if you crack it, she’s probably already changed the encryption keys.”
Liam and I exchanged a look. He’d been working with Richard to break Mueller’s phone encryption for the past six hours with limited success.
“What about her location? Did she ever reference where she was operating from?”
“Never directly. But...” Mueller hesitated. “The message timestamps. They varied—sometimes she’d respond immediately, sometimes hours would pass. Like she was moving between time zones.”
“Which ones?”
“Started in Asian time zone. Korea, probably. Then European. Then back to Asian.” She paused. “The last message, two hours before the show, came at a time that would have been early morning in Korea.”
Seoul. She was going back to Seoul.
“One more question,” I said. “Why did you take this job? Ten thousand euros is good money, but not worth twenty years in prison.”
Mueller’s face hardened. “I needed the money. And she said the security was good but predictable. That it would be quick, clean, low risk.” She looked up at me. “I was wrong.”
Liam and I sat in our room at the Tivoli Mofarrej, laptops open, piecing together what we’d learned. Richard was on video call from wherever he was. I’d stopped asking years ago.
“Mueller’s phone is a fortress,” Richard said, his face pixelated on the screen. “Custom encryption, auto-delete protocols, routing through VPN layers that would make the CIA jealous. I can crack it, but it’ll take days, maybe weeks.”
“We don’t have weeks,” I said. “We have four days until the Seoul show.”
“Then we work with what we know.” Liam pulled up a timeline. “Sara Yoon started in Seoul, traveled to Europe during Cannes and Paris, possibly came to New York, definitely followed us to S?o Paulo based on Mueller’s timestamp analysis. Now she’s heading back to Seoul for the finale.”
“Makes sense,” Richard said. “Seoul’s her home ground. She knows the city, knows the venue, has local resources and connections we don’t have access to.”
“And it’s the biggest show of the tour,” I added. “Fifty thousand people at World Cup Stadium. Maximum chaos, maximum impact. If she’s going to make a final attempt, that’s where.”
Liam zoomed in on the Seoul section of our timeline. “World Cup Stadium security is government-level. They host presidential events, international summits, and major athletic competitions. It’s one of the most secure venues in Asia.”
“Which Sara Yoon knows,” I said. “She worked for Starhouse. She’s seen the security protocols for Seoul shows. She knows what she’s up against.”
“So how does she plan to get through it?”
I recalled Mueller’s description of Sara Yoon’s methodology. Professional. Patient. Willing to invest months in planning and positioning assets.
“She doesn’t get through it,” I said slowly. “She goes around it. Or under it. Or she’s already inside.”
Richard’s image sharpened on the screen. “Inside how?”
“Starhouse is based in Seoul. Sara Yoon has worked in this industry for years, both at Starhouse and before. She has relationships, connections, people who owe her favors or who she’s paid off.
” I pulled up the personnel roster for the Seoul show.
“She doesn’t need to breach security if she’s already got someone on the inside. ”
“The touring staff,” Liam said. “Seventeen Starhouse employees who’ve been with us since Cannes. All vetted, all cleared.”
“By Starhouse HR. Which Sara Yoon had access to as a manager.” I started cross-referencing names. “She could have compromised someone months ago, before any of this started. Planted someone in the touring crew specifically for Seoul.”
“That’s paranoid even for you.”
“Mueller said Sara Yoon had at least three or four other assets. We’ve identified Sophie Tran, the makeup assistant from Paris, Mueller herself. That’s three. Who else could she have, in what positions?”
Liam was already pulling up the touring staff files. “Someone who’s been with us the whole time. Someone who’s had access to Jin at every venue.”
We went through the list methodically. Sunny?
Impossible, she’d known Jin since he was a trainee and was fiercely protective.
Jason and his security team had been vetted multiple times, backgrounds clean.
The stylists, makeup artists, choreographer, and vocal coach were all long-term Starhouse employees with years of clean history.
Then I saw it.
“Grace Han,” I said, pulling up her file. “Translator. Added to the tour eighteen months ago, right when Sara Yoon was hired.”
Liam read over my shoulder. “Korean-American, fluent in Korean, English, French and Portuguese. Hired through Starhouse’s standard recruiting process.”
“Who signed off on her hire?”
He scrolled down. “Park Eun-ji and... Sara Yoon.”
We stared at each other.
“It could be coincidence,” Liam said, but his voice said he didn’t believe it.
“Or Sara Yoon positioned her own asset in the touring crew eighteen months ago, knowing she’d eventually need someone with inside access.” I pulled up Grace Han’s travel records. “She’s been at every show. Every venue. She’s had access to Jin, to schedules, to security briefings.”
“She’s also been completely professional and unremarkable for eighteen months. No red flags, no suspicious behavior.”
“Which is exactly what a well-placed sleeper agent would do.” I looked at Liam. “We need to investigate her without tipping her off. If she is Sara Yoon’s asset and she realizes we’re onto her, she’ll either run or accelerate whatever’s planned for Seoul.”
“I’ll have Richard dig into her background—the real background, not just what’s in the Starhouse files.” Liam pulled out his phone. “And we need to tell Jason. If Grace is compromised, she’s been in security briefings since the tour started.”
My phone rang. Eun-ji.
“We have a problem,” she said without preamble.
“Sang-hoon’s injury is all over social media.
One of the accredited photographers put out a photo of Sang-hoon bleeding and Jin holding his hand to his media outlets.
Fan accounts are posting photos, asking who he is, analyzing his relationship with Jin. ”
“How bad?”
“Trending in six countries. #WhoIsSanghoon, #JinsSavior, #ProtectThem.” She paused. “Some fans are speculating they’re in a relationship beyond just idol and stylist.”
I rubbed my eyes. “That’s the least of our problems right now.”
“It’s about to become a bigger problem. Korean media picked it up. They’re asking for statements from Starhouse about Jin’s safety and about his relationship with staff members.”
“What are you telling them?”
“Nothing yet. But I can’t stonewall forever.” Her voice was tight. “Aidan, if this relationship becomes public before we’re ready to manage it—”
“Then we deal with it. But right now, keeping Jin alive is more important than managing his image.” I looked at Liam. “We’re flying to Seoul tomorrow. I need you to have a crisis management plan ready, but don’t execute anything until after the final show.”
“And if the media forces our hand before then?”
“Then we confirm Jin and Sang-hoon are close colleagues, that Sang-hoon acted heroically to protect a member of the group, and that Starhouse appreciates his dedication. Nothing more.”
“That’s not going to satisfy anyone.”
“It doesn’t have to. It just has to buy us four days.
” I hung up and looked at Liam. “I don’t think we have any other choice but to let Sara Yoon, or another of her agents, come to us.
We lock down World Cup Stadium, we control every variable we can control, and we wait for her to make her move. And when she does, we’ll be ready.”
“That’s a hell of a gamble,” he said.
“You have a better plan?”
“Not really.” He shook his head.
I drummed my fingers on the table. “But if we’re wrong, if she’s smarter than we think or if we miss something—”
“Then Jin dies and we spend the rest of our lives knowing we failed.” He stood, yawned. “It’s late, and we have an early flight tomorrow to Seoul.”
He pulled me close, and kissed me briefly. “We’re going to catch her in Seoul, we’re going to end this, and then we’re going to go home to France and not think about K-pop for at least six months. I have faith in us.”
I smiled. “Four more days. We can do anything in four days.”