Shin Bao left for Andong on a Tuesday.
He did not ask whether the trip was necessary. He reviewed the documents the evening before, asked two questions — one about the grandson's current enrollment status, one about whether Director Han Seung-cheol had any known association with the ministry's current northern oversight committee — and then said he would take the early coach.
I had prepared a cover for him: a routine administrative audit of pension disbursement records for retired ministry officials in the eastern provinces. It was the kind of task that explained a visitor without drawing attention. Bureaucratic enough to be credible. Narrow enough that no one would feel compelled to look closely. Shin Bao, who had spent years making himself unremarkable in rooms where remarkable things were decided, would carry it well.
