Chapter 71 – 7. Snow Flush (1)
Memory never sleeps
So, the United States and the cabinet members at the presidential residence were at a loss as to what to do when they saw the scene unfolding before their eyes. This is because even in this group of fast-paced ambitious people, there was an advisor like Lee Jeong-pyo. Unlike them, he was still young and beautiful, but still truly wise.
“What about your wife?”
“You seem to be asleep.”
That is why the official residence protected by Atlantica’s best power is not a living room that can be visited every day. He has to follow her impeccable search procedures, even if she is the deputy minister of justice or the acting minister of defense, and it is not easy to visit her again amidst her busy schedule.
“It is rare.”
“On the one hand, it’s difficult.”
“Did Dr. Montessori visit?”
The Vice Minister and the Acting Minister looked at each other’s faces and talked nonsense. My wife, who has always been active in the shadow of the United States, has no night. She, like that president, Bella Baker, is also known for never sleeping.
But seeing her sitting in her armchair like this with her eyes closed, it was only natural that she would not be easily awakened.
“What is your business?”
“This is the list of asylum seekers that the president requested earlier.”
“I got hit. It’s the most important secret.”
“What about the vice minister?”
“The unit deployed in the vanguard operation brought the target.”
“You mean those otherworldly people?”
“Because it is. How hard they worked to keep Zvezda and the Iron Cross from noticing.”
The whispered conversation spread to the hallway leading to the library of the official residence. It is said that the building boasts the best security in the United States of Amman, but it was not a good thing for the use of national treasures such as dimension gates to come up and down the tongue.
“It’s been a while, you two.”
That is why a woman living in the room next to the study appeared. Although I often went into seclusion due to a complex about my physical defects, I now received guests as thanks to the country where I lived in exile.
“Miss, Miss Schultz.”
On top of a magically operated wheelchair, an orc with no limbs approached quietly from the far end, touching the controller with his mouth. Like the wife who was sleeping here in the darkness of the study, her name was none other than Leona, the old head of the Iron Cross.
“You’ve been raging for so long.”
The spirit of the strong does not disappear just because a limb is cut off. Moreover, unlike the wife of the official residence, she does not hold any title and is a civilian. Even in a society where civil control works, it is bound to feel shabby compared to the vice minister of justice or the acting defense minister.
Nonetheless, Leona received her two ministers with calm charisma.
“Yes, long time no see.”
“Secretary Douglas Moore.”
“How is your health?”
“Acting Dominic LeBlanc.”
Instead of answering her name, she nodded her head on the desk in her study. I thought they were overly arrogant in their attitude towards the head of a country, but neither of them said that.
“There will be papers on the desk for the two of you to take.”
Because the opponent was that famous Engager.
“I apologize for offending those outsiders discussing major issues in the country.”
“No. What are you saying…….”
“Hey, may I ask what happened to you, madam?”
“It would be nice if I had the right to issue a celebratory order.”
The Vice Minister and the Acting Minister, who understood the meaning of the words, hurriedly returned with the documents. Among the cabinet members, only a few, including us, knew of its existence, and everyone except the president and his wife in the dark ran away from the uncomfortable woman.
“Sir, excuse me.”
“Then we are done!”
I don’t know how funny it was to turn around as soon as I nodded. Leona, who did not twitch even after watching such skits, was not her sentiment, but if she had anything worthwhile in this tedious wait, she would definitely be like this.
On the day that wife’s precognitive dream ends, heaven and earth will surely be opened.
A royal heirloom shone in the dark shadows.
* * *
Sections of life pass by like a kaleidoscope.
As death fades and life rises, my body disappears. It was torn apart, leaving only the spirit. Until the moment it was reconstructed like that, it felt like an eternity. I only realized it in the boundary of consciousness where neither light nor darkness exists.
That this is the suppressed past.
Soon everything passed by.
There was darkness, and a sandy windy wilderness descended.
Among them, eight men argued over one boy. And the boy from the developing country, who was rolling on the floor gagged, widened his bloodshot eyes. Even then, she did not close her eyes, which would sting from the sand, and shed bloody tears.
“Did you see it, sergeant?”
It was an operation in Herat, Afghanistan. At the same time, it was also the first operation of the youngest and youngest man. The nature of the operation, which was done in black, was originally a hostage rescue, and it could be said that he was an assistant of the United States Army Special Forces.
“These are the children of this country.”
The problem is that the video of the execution of the hostage was released on the same day that the troops were dispatched. Even so, the government, concerned about the political blow, decided to cover up the fact.
“Do you think it is an honor to save the country putting a bomb on your stomach and making a suicide charge?”
Naturally, the unit’s mission was transformed into a preventive operation. And they easily occupied the area where the hostages were taken. Men and women, young and old, began to avenge the brutal executions.
“We should be copying those Yankees.”
It wasn’t just the U.S. Army.
“Kill them all, leave the judgment to God!”
So did the Armed Forces.
“Hey, fuck! Isn’t it fucking cool?”
The so-called Green Berets were preoccupied with finding survivors, killing them, and mutilating their bodies. With Juyeon taking such an example, there was no reason not to help out as a supporting actress.
Madness was always contagious.
“He who fights monsters must become a monster himself in the fight.”
“If we look into the abyss, is it because the abyss also looks into us?”
“What bullshit are you talking about? That’s what makes it a fight.”
In the midst of the dizzying confusion, the captain who was the commander of the unit kicked the boy who was lying on the floor and continued. He glanced at the barely defusing bomb and the guy next to him, then lovingly stroked the barrel.
“Anyway, I saw your monstrous skills. Very dignified But if there’s one thing I’m worried about, it’s that there’s too much recognition. How can you not kill a single person in that fierce battle?”
“I was lucky.”
“Damn it, it’s your mother! Do you know what skills are? I mean, I’m so fucking happy right now. It was so frustrating seeing only low-ranking scumbags crawling and begging all the time to retire. It’s been a while since a useful guy came in, so I feel like I want to dance naked.”
The captain, who expressed ecstasy because he was frivolous, handed me the pistol that I was holding. The pistol’s name was the Beretta M9. As an item snatched from the arms of a dead Green Beret friend, the captain often used the captured gun for something like this.
“Receive.”
The sergeant took it.
“Shoot.”
And he was astonished by the order that followed.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I trust you. Our troops will do the same. But Joseph didn’t seem to be like that. Is your view the typical whistleblower’s view? I lived my life and saw all the rhinoceros rhymes.”
“Now what…….”
“Anyway, that’s why I decided to prove it.”
“Captain!”
“Joseph, this dog! Are you a green beret? What a great soldier our Sergeant Seo is! He could shoot a kid through the head for his comrades! You’re ready, aren’t you?”
The sergeant’s hand holding the pistol trembled. The captain fidgeted with the rifle I was holding and gave another order. Soon seven veterans surrounded a newcomer and another boy. So they prepared their own declaration ceremony and their own execution ceremony.
“What are you doing?”
“This is not it. That’s not right.”
“I know. But Joseph is waiting. We need to flatten that bastard’s nose.”
“I can’t.”
The captain sighed and raised his rifle. With the muzzle attached to the sergeant’s head, he shook his head in a chilled voice.
“Sergeant, hurry up and pull the trigger.”
“I’m still a 15-year-old app…… !”
“Therefore? Shut up and pull.”
The captain was a master of this sort of thing. The troops who followed him were the same participants, only in different degrees. Although out of his mind, he was a useful commander and was quite popular. And the sergeant, unable to bear that fact, met eyes with the boy rolling in front of him.
I made up my mind when I saw the child’s eyes crying silently.
“…… Fuck you.”
Don’t hold the gun too close to your head. If you just turn your head, the bullet will miss. Of course, in practice, it would be difficult to move as neatly as in training, but the sergeant still moved his body even as he was injured by the last bullet that grazed his head.
Foolishly, the comrades surrounded in a circle could not easily pull the trigger. In the first place, unlike the captain, they didn’t even carry guns before that. They just crossed their arms or touched each other in order to keep up their form on the subject of war crimes.
Bang, Tata Tang!
The muzzle of the rifle spewed fire. The sergeant, who was holding the barrel, directed it toward the men standing over his shoulder. At the same time, he quickly put one shot down between the foreheads of those who were trying to pull out their guns, and in the end, after knocking down all six, he disarmed the last remaining captain.
“Fuck, that’s ridiculous…….”
“What else can be absurd about a topic that is not even basic?”
“Therefore? Did you kill six people just to save the life of that son of a bitch?”
“Seven.”
“What?”
Bang! The bullet penetrated through the body armor and pierced the captain’s lungs. Grasping his chest and staggering, he immediately collapsed, his complexion quickly turning blue and wheezing. He groaned and spat out his will.
“You, can you handle this…….”
“I don’t know.”
The sergeant checked his last round and aimed his gun at him. Contrary to what the captain did, he aimed at the forehead with an accurate shooting posture and struck down.
“But it’s none of your business.”
It was a theory. The captain met his end with a smirk at that superb answer. He also closed his eyes, clearly proving that he was infected with the madness of war. Even so, he did not sympathize with him, but he did.
And the sergeant accused everything that happened in Herat that day.
Pod!
The whole surroundings turned black. It was another blackout.
And this time the hot desert returned. Near the ancient Syrian ruins of Palmyra, a man confronted a group of turbaned men. Heavily armed, they were fierce jihadists, and were there to exchange men for hostages.
“Korean army sergeant, is that correct?”
The bearded man in the lead asked in a distinctive Arabic tone.
“Right.”
The man replied so.
“Where are the hostages you are supposed to release?”
“I’ll take it back literally.”
The group led by the bearded numbered in the dozens. They occupied Palmyra earlier and planted mines in locations only they knew. Their goal was to recapture the hostages, not to negotiate.
Even though it was actually a trade-off, it was for this reason that the detainees were not brought. On the one hand, I was under the illusion that just sparing the life of a man-like cultist would be merciful enough.
“We asked first.”
“If you do, I will answer you. There are no hostages here.”
“It sounds like you want to die.”
Around that time, the voice of the command could be heard through the peltor headset that was plugged into the man’s ear. It had been talked about risking a risky shot earlier, but the bomber that flew like a shot dropped all the bombs it had built in without hesitation.
“It must be a little different from the language we use.”
“What do you mean?”
“I said I came to kill you.”
“…… !”
In the first place, the man belonged to the Special Operations Forces. Having successfully led numerous black operations at a young age, he was here to avenge his beheaded comrade. So the snipers waiting in the distance fired suppressive fire just in time, and white phosphorus from the sky landed on a group of Palmyran bearders and set them on fire.
“Huh, hah!”
“What was your nickname? A beheader?”
The confused people fired guns all over the place. But even that was short-lived. The white phosphorus clinging to the skin burned fiercely like the sparks of life they had stolen. Paid so much Even so, the man jumped into the fire pit and grabbed the beheader bearded man by the collar.
“Then what is my nickname?”
I disarmed him and slashed his face with his butt.
“Answer me, you son of a bitch!”
“Turn it off…….”
“What am I to pay back the share of the friend you chopped and killed!”
I didn’t care about the splashing of white phosphorus and used violence like that. He crushed the bones of his limbs, and his face collapsed one after another, from his nose to his cheekbones to his jawbone. Then he finally grabbed his hair and dragged him.
The nearby enemies, who belatedly grasped the situation, sprayed sarin gas along with support, but the man survived.
I threw him into the Humvee as he was hit with atropine. He survived after thwarting the pursuit alone until the next vehicle returned to and fro as there was no place.
Thus, the notorious beheader took revenge on the man responsible for killing his comrades. He was secretly imprisoned and tortured, only to be put on trial at the end.
Pod!
The surroundings became dark again. It was the third blackout.
Soon, a musty smell wafted through the air. It was a South American slum. From the city of Juárez, south of El Paso, Texas, to Rocinha Favela, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
There, a man clad in a body armor under his regular clothes was torturing men kneeling in the safe house. He cut the flesh of those who didn’t like the dirty tattoos with a dagger. If he showed signs of fainting, he administered the prepared stimulant and repeated the work he was doing.
“Stop, stop…….”
How many were you? I remembered that it was probably the 90th. He was a high-ranking cartel executive who killed my boss, and he was relentlessly interrogating to find out where the boss was.
“Please stop…….”
“Tell me where your boss is.”
The executive did not open his mouth easily. Normally, he would be quick to babble if he shot him in the knee once or twice, but Lee Ja didn’t come to that position for nothing, so he seldom spent time.
“I-I know who you are! You’re that bitch’s subordinate! Of the video we filmed!”
“This is Gloria Stone. Gloria Stone, head of the CIA’s Special Activities Unit.”
“You can’t do anything alone anyway! If you tell me where the boss is, my family will die! I’d rather kill you!”
“Okay then keep barking.”
So the man was tortured with confessions, drugs, and their antagonist alternately. He did the same thing over and over again to the extent that it was a miracle that he was alive, and finally he heard the crying guy.
“Kill me, kill me…….”
He was a crazy guy who kept repeating the same words like a parrot. What brought it back and gave me the answer I was hoping for could only be described as a maniacal obsession.
“Don’t get me wrong.”
“Ooh, uh…….”
“I am not here as a soldier. So if you think I’m going to abide by the Geneva Conventions, you’re in trouble. It’s not just your boss who can kill your family.”
“No, please don’t touch my family…….”
“You seem to love your family, don’t you? But it’s wrong. If you really want them to be well, what you need to put in your mouth is an address, not a plea. The only address that will lead to the eradication of your cartel.”
Torture is a race against time.
“I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you…….”
The address the executive spit out was real. The man attacked the mansion where dozens of bodyguards resided. He captured the boss, tortured him in front of his family, and made him confess his crimes. In the end, it was crippled and handed over.
Langley’s intelligence friends were horrified. What the foreign collaborators under the dead Special Activities Department did was ignorant. The organization he destroyed was responsible for 80% of the heroin supply to the Americas. Thanks to this, the drug market in North America fluctuated after the incident occurred. Dozens of public officials who ate the back money were shackled.
“Sergeant Seo Jung-woo is a dangerous element. Time bombs like this should no longer exist in our military.”
“That’s why you can’t just blindly discharge it, can you? Already had results. Besides, if you let such a useful guy go, it’s obvious that the Yankees will snatch it away.”
“The United States and its blood allies will never take Sergeant Seo. Because it was he who killed Morales, the godfather of South America. How can you think of a drug lord who thoroughly disguised himself as a philanthropist when even Escobar still has followers? Unless he completely renounces diplomacy there, that’s nonsense.”
“Do you know that we are the only ones operating an unofficial unit? Do you know that the military is only in the English-American region? At any rate, imagine that guy defected to North Korea. It will be a monster that creates hundreds of monsters just like it.”
“Then you will be detained. It would be best to keep him locked up until a definitive decision can be made.”
“On what grounds?”
“The sergeant’s offenses are innumerable. This was not the only black operation he carried out that cost lives. Moreover, he is currently deserting. He went so far as to publish a video of Morales’ murder. The evidence is sufficient.”
The South Korean government was stunned by what its soldiers did. Somewhere on the net where a video of the torturing and killing of Gloria Stone was uploaded, the same thing happened to the people in the video. Even their leader, the godfather of South America!
“Is that horrible video really uploaded by a sergeant?”
“The results of the comparison are certain.”
At the end of every video, there was a message of mourning and warning for her dead.
“Okay. Then take the sergeant and his allies into custody. Feel free to frame me if need be. I will bear the price of this sin.”
“Thank you for your decision to save the country, Colonel.”
The light went out. It was dark again this time.
“Is it enough to just set off a few explosives?”
Under an overpass in London, England, two men had a violent confrontation. It happened with police controlling the area and skilful snipers stationed everywhere. A stateless man who claimed to be a terrorist was crying.
Like me, I was crying out to my old boss who had lost his nationality.
“Look what they did to us!”
A loud siren rang in her head. The reporters who caught the screen from a distance made their own guesses plausibly. It was a series of circumstances that were completely out of control. Even because of that old soldier who took the city hostage with a heart-to-heart bomb.
“Sergeant, what are you so good at pretending to be noble?”
“Is what you did right?”
“I will never let go of that petty morality!”
“Don’t talk nonsense. I tortured and killed more than ten people. But still, do you think there will be morality or something?”
“Are you trembling with that crazy captain? Or fanatic beheader trash? Or do you mean Morales and the disgusting criminal? You killed because you deserved to die! Everything! And yet you are always plagued with guilt! You never once tried to take care of yourself!”
It was a place where thousands of lives were at stake. It was a situation where the man who was put in for persuasion was reversed by the man who had to be persuaded. He just covered it up with an emotionless face.
“Look, sergeant. I’m not strong like you. I just did what the government told me to do, but I rotted in that hell for 5 years. Now I have a chance to take revenge on those bastards, but why are you stopping me…….”
“The war is over.”
“My war is still on!”
Bang! It was an instant moment. With the successor trying to activate the bomb, the man who acted as negotiator had no choice but to fire his concealed gun. He incapacitated him at once, and had no choice but to move the patch on his chest to me with the beat of his heart.
“You idiot, you knew I hid the gun.”
“Hehe, cool…….”
“Why did you do that?”
“You really don’t know the fall…… ?”
The old soldier, the man who threw the big city into a panic, died just like that. And a man named Seo Jeong-woo did not hear the answer to that puzzling question, and had to walk toward the dark shadow of his life.
“Would you like to try the music again?”
I became a civilian as if I was kicked out of the military. He got a daily life like everyone else in exchange for strict mouth control and some oppression. It was around that time that he accidentally met his teacher when he was young and challenged himself to become a pianist. It was clumsy at first, but he gradually built up a reputation, and finally, in his 20s, his talent finally blossomed.
Yeah that’s been my life
I’ve been curious all along. What is the true meaning of the words that the successor guy I followed so much left me. Did you literally ask if you didn’t know about the fall, or did you ask why you turned away when you knew you didn’t?
Now I know
That was encouraging. As someone who had already fallen, he advised me to fight against it without giving in even if it came to me one day. It meant that I should become a person who can confidently shout like this in response to my question.
Yes.
Shoot an old man for revenge, train a woman for dominion, and submit to the queen for a greater cause.
I really do not know the fall.
Not yet.
* * *
“Leona.”
“Yes.”
“It’s the fourth.”
“Okay.”
“Start.”
