Chapter Ten;

August 29th
Seoul, South Korea  

The exit strategy started with Kyungsoo feeding an anonymous tip to one of Chief Choi’s detectives. Kim Minseok had rented a space in a parking garage a week ago about five miles from Gangnam, and he had visited it the night of the break in in a black Toyota sedan. Although nothing had been reported officially missing from the break-in, the visit certainly seemed like suspicious behavior. 

Then, the rest was just an act. 

Minseok was inside a black Toyota sedan, waiting around the corner for Chief Choi to burst in. Minseok was going to wait just long enough to be recognized on purpose before peeling out of the parking lot. 

Chanyeol and Jongdae were both driving around Seoul right now. Jongdae was driving a huge trailer truck, and Chanyeol a towing truck that had an identical Toyota latched on, controllable with a remote and stocked with explosives. The rush hour traffic on Cheongdam Bridge was going to provide the perfect cover for a car switch during the chase. We had even left a previous draft Yixing had made of the Berendzen in the car. If any bits were to escape the explosion and the painting in Lee's posession was found to be a fake, the consensus would be that the painting blew up when Minseok’s car crashed into the guardrail. 

This was how Minseok had wanted to go, apparently, as a big ball of fire, on its way into the Han River.

That was not my task to worry about. I lurked back at my apartment, waiting until Sehun gave me the coast is clear signal, meaning that the chase for Minseok had started. The real painting had been disguised by Kyungsoo to look like a canvas painting of a kpop idol. 

“If you get pulled over for any reason, just be a cute fan girl,” Kyungsoo advised.

“Or,” Lu Han added, “better yet, don’t get pulled over.”

I made sure to obey all the traffic laws and speed limits, not taking any chances. I took the Seongsan bridge toward Mapo-gu and headed for Goyang, an hour and a half away. I tried to relax as I drove, but I couldn’t help but worry. Was Minseok going to be okay? The switch should be simple. Minseok only needed to dart between the two trucks just as Chanyeol let the fake go. Sehun was also inside the truck. He would control the fake Toyota for twenty seconds or so by remote, until the police were in sight, and then crash it into the guardrail to set off the explosion. It should stop all traffic on the bridge after it, and Minseok would be long gone while Chief Cho would think that Minseok had died in the explosion. 

But what if something went wrong? What if someone got hurt in the explosion? What if Minseok gets cornered before he reached the bridge? What if someone crashed? 

I was just fifteen minutes away from J’s designated meeting place in Goyang when I got the phone call from Sehun. 

“All clear,