Chapter 32
Ong Se-Ri sipped her tea as she scrolled through gossip columns on her mobile phone.
The pictures of the smiling young woman wearing a fire helmet and fireman’s jacket filled most of them. Each story read like overly creative fiction from an outsider that was trying much too hard to sell the story.
She was a bit envious that they had done it as seamlessly as they had because each outlet was biting at the story and had it on their front page.
Those weren’t the pictures that were supposed to be plastered across the tabloids.
And those weren’t the headlines that were supposed to accompany them.
The mobile in her hand rang, it was the call she was grudgingly waiting for.
“Good morning,” Se-Ri greeted. “There was a complications-”
“Is that what you call it?” Manager Jang Min sneered. “I pay you and your little photogs good money to do as I ask. We have had a productive and very profitable working relationship over the years. And I must say, Ong Se-Ri, you have greatly disappointed me.”
Se-Ri top lip snarled upward before she regained her composure. “As I said, there was a situation. An unforeseen complication that I am looking into.”
Calling it a complication was an understatement. Needing the very firehouse they were trying to get pictures from to help them out of their van was humiliating to say the least.
“What exactly happened?” Min asked. “You were given the little brat’s schedule, knew exactly where she’d be, and had the headlines and stories already prepared to run with the pictures. So tell me, what was so difficult about getting the latter? What was the unforeseen complication that made your very simple job so difficult?”
“We were ambushed,” Se-Ri said.
“Ambushed?” Min asked, skeptical. “Tell me this is your attempt at amusing me.”
“Not at all,” she dryly informed her.
“Was the firehouse in North Korea and someone forgot to tell me?” Min mused.
“No. Somehow, someone sequestered the team in the van. We had to call the very firemen we were trying to get pictures of for help to get out.”
There was silence on the other line from Sweden.
“Wait, what?” Min eventually asked. “Sequestered?”
Ong Se-Ri didn’t want to say it aloud.
It sounded completely outlandish and ridiculous.
But the proof was right there.
“I’m waiting to be enlightened as to why Hwang Sang-Hee is nothing more than a footnote online, and is being moved to paper tabloids that only reach less than a tenth of the nation,” Min sneered. “I should never see anything praising Myo Min-Sun when very expensive means to generate the exact opposite are filling the headlines! Wouldn’t you agree?” she shrieked.
It was a struggle, but Ong Se-Ri bit her tongue.
If she didn’t have such a profitable relationship with Manager Jang Min, one that helped Se-Ri target the one person she hated more than anything, she would have hung up by now and cut her losses.
“We were locked in the van from the outside,” Se-Ri explained, trying to keep her voice down so those at the neighboring tables didn’t hear. “We never saw it coming. It was fast, precise, and efficient. In less than thirty-seconds we were locked in the van and our tires were sliced. And then that little spoiled brat simply rode past us on a firetruck in disguise. It was as if the entire thing was planned, expertly planned and executed with military precision.”
Min snorted. “Please tell me you’re kidding and you merely slept in and missed the window of opportunity.”
“And waste both of our time?” Se-Ri scoffed. “I was stuck in that damn van with the cameraman for nearly an hour before we called for help. He reeked of kimchi and bad life choices.”
The man on the other side of the teahouse choked on the drink he had just taken, sealing Se-Ri’s attention.
“A team of military trained professionals took you out in under a minute?” Min asked, skeptical.
Se-Ri groaned, looking to the ceiling in frustration. “To put it bluntly, yes. That is exactly how it appeared. I didn’t see anything, and that’s what makes it even more suspicious.”
“Did you follow up on the call that she went out on under your nose?” Min pressed.
“Yes, of course,” Se-Ri said. “It is not my first time being in the field-”
“But it is the first time you were taking out so effortlessly in the field. In your own news van even.”
“Yes, it was, and that should tell you something!” she snapped at her. “I tried to get the firemen that freed us from the van to talk, to tell me about the call they left on shortly after we got on site.”
“And?”
“They wouldn’t elaborate,” Se-Ri said. “They were so tightlipped it was as if someone warned them that we’d be there and asking question.”
“Interesting,” Min said, more to herself.
“And there were no dispatch record that I could request a copy of through even legitimate channels either,” she continued. “They were gone for ten minutes, that was it, so they couldn’t have gone far. But where that station is, there are too many possible routes they could have taken.”
It was concerning, that they could agree on.
“The hired driver?” Min pressed.
“Was of no use, and from what I’ve learned NuStarr terminated their contract with the transport company,” Se-Ri reported. “And last night she didn’t stay at Chairman Hu’s home.”
Min chuckled; this was getting really interesting now.
“Did her shadow?” she asked.
“Dae-Ho never leaves her side, you know that,” Se-Ri said.
“Then find the shadow and follow it,” Min said as if it were obvious. “There can’t be that many companies in Seoul that have the type of people you are suggesting Chairman Hu hired for his star contract. That type of efficiency, as you said, sounds military trained. That shouldn’t be too terribly hard to track down. Start with the usual contractors and personal protection companies and I’ll make some calls on my side to see what I can find out. If I discover you are making things up because you missed your opportunity, you will regret it,” she warned before hanging up.
Se-Ri rolled her eyes then grabbed her jacket from the back of her chair before heading for the door.
Out front, a car pulled up and she climbed in before it sped away.
From the opposite side of the teahouse, the man sitting in the corner got to his feet and hurried over to the table Se-Ri had been sitting at.
Lucien ran his hand along the underside of the table until his fingers brushed against the small recording device he had placed there when he entered shortly after Se-Ri had sat down.
It only takes brushing against someone and accidentally knocking their jacket off their chair to set up surveillance. And that was one of the things Lucien excelled at.
Per Lula’s instructions, he careful wrapped Ong Se-Ri’s empty teacup in a napkin then pocketed it before heading from the teahouse, going the opposite direction the car went.
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