Father (5)
"You're not going to clear his name? What the hell is that supposed to mean?!"
I pinned Bones's leg as he tried to shoot up out of his seat.
"You said if Lieutenant General Max was in the wrong, you'd make him pay for it. But deep down, you actually want him to be innocent, don't you?"
The question hit him square. Bones shrank back and sat down properly again.
"Isn't General Yosef the culprit? That's why you sent me to him in the first place…"
I looked at him for a long moment, then asked,
"Bones. Do you trust your father?"
"Of course I do. He raised me."
"Then why did you tell him to leave you behind back then?"
The reminder of his personal black history turned his face scarlet in an instant.
"Can we please not talk about that?"
"Back then, you clearly didn't trust him."
"That was…"
"You respect Lieutenant General Max, sure. But you also believe he could cast you aside at any time. You're not his blood son, and he has plenty of other adopted kids."
"…"
Bones didn't deny it.
Of course he didn't. Everything he had done to earn Max's recognition was, put another way, little more than thrashing about so he wouldn't be abandoned.
"…Fine. I understand what you're getting at."
Bones looked at me quietly, then opened his mouth again.
"I don't trust Lieutenant General Max. I just hope he didn't abandon me—and because of that, I want him to be innocent. Satisfied?"
"Yeah. Same here."
"You're the same, Lord Haydam?"
"There's no proof Yosef is the culprit, and none that Max is either. I suspect Yosef, but it's still just gut feeling. Meaning Max could still be the one. And yet I'm putting on this whole performance and calling an officers' meeting for one reason only."
I held up a single finger.
"To find out which of them is more worth keeping alive."
"…I don't follow."
"This mess cost me several soldiers I couldn't afford to lose."
"Those 'soldiers you couldn't afford to lose'—that includes Colonel Samson, I take it?"
"Obviously. If none of this had happened, he would've done his job right where he was supposed to be."
Bones still looked lost, so I pressed on.
"Between Yosef and Max, I want the one who won't get any more of my soldiers killed to be the one left standing."
"And you can tell that… from an officers' meeting?"
"Yeah. There's an old saying—if you want to know which parent truly loves their child, tell them to cut the kid in half right in front of them."
"What? That's insane… Who the hell said something that horrific?"
"Solomon."
"Never heard of the guy. …Wait."
Bones sank into thought for a beat, then looked up at me as if something had clicked.
"And the kid who has to be cut in half right now… that's me, isn't it?"
"You may not know Solomon, but at least you're quick on the uptake."
"Knowing you, Lord Haydam, you'd actually do it. So please just tell me what you're planning."
"Relax."
I grinned at him.
"When the time comes, you'll understand why Solomon said to cut the child in two."
Yosef entered the officers' conference hall on edge.
Rumors kept spreading, yet before the meeting he still hadn't been able to identify any of the soldiers who claimed to have seen Colonel Samson. In the end, he was walking into an emergency officers' meeting for Bones's testimony without ever confirming whether the rumors were true.
Separate from the sightings of Samson, he had rounded up the men who had handled things that day and subjected them to interrogation—no, to a frank conversation.
All they said was that they had made damn sure he was dead.
Yosef knew. Those eyes had been telling the truth. At the very least, those men had watched the exact moment Colonel Samson's breath stopped.
All I can do now is hope the rumor that Samson is alive is just a rumor.
A quick sweep of the hall showed only the Commander, the officers, and Bones.
Lord Haydam isn't here.
The thought came unbidden—and only a moment later did Yosef realize what it meant. He had taken it for granted that Haydam would be present for testimony on a major incident involving seven murdered soldiers and a colonel's suicide. He wasn't the only one. Officers who had been scanning the room for someone all settled their expressions at once, as if the same realization had hit them.
So this is the influence of a child who found his place again after ten years. This is nowhere near normal.
It seemed obvious that someday that boy would swallow Yosef's entire domain whole. Perhaps the reason he had risked so much to frame Lieutenant General Max and cling to his own position was the pressure of Haydam's ever-growing influence.
Still, we're in the same boat now…
Yosef's relief did not last.
Just as he was trying to take comfort in the idea that supporting Bones would let him plant one foot in Haydam's sphere of influence, former General Anton burst into the conference hall and dropped a bombshell.
"On the basis of Colonel Samson's testimony, I am filing charges against Sub-Lieutenant Bones."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
It was the worst possible surprise, something he had never even imagined—but Yosef rose from his seat and kept his voice as steady as he could.
"You're charging Sub-Lieutenant Bones on Colonel Samson's testimony…? Colonel Samson took his own life."
Anton looked at him and smiled a smile that meant nothing good—a smile that said, Surely you've heard the rumors.
"Colonel Samson is under my protection."
Yosef felt his heart drop into his stomach.
Then the rumor was true?
Even so, his head tilted as if he genuinely didn't understand.
"Under your protection? Are you saying Colonel Samson is alive? And even if he were, why would a civilian—a retired general—be holding one of our soldiers?"
"It was His Excellency who entrusted the colonel to me."
His Excellency?!
Whether Anton was lying or not, the Commander's face, seated at the center of the hall, did not so much as twitch. Then again, without the Commander's leave, Anton would never have been allowed to open the doors and speak here in the first place.
I thought he'd merely turned a blind eye to Anton spiriting Samson away… If His Excellency handed him over himself…
Yosef's heart began to race. If this much had already happened without his knowledge, the current was past anyone's control.
This is no time to be backing Bones.
Abandoning him here would mean betraying Haydam's trust—but the colonel was alive. If Yosef didn't get his story straight with the man, Samson might decide to change his tune and start dropping Yosef's name. Insisting that Max was the culprit in this room would be the same as accusing the colonel of false testimony.
But flipping his stance on the spot would only draw suspicion. Yosef arranged his face into a look of confusion and spoke.
"What exactly did Colonel Samson testify that makes you want to charge Sub-Lieutenant Bones?"
"His testimony is as follows. Sub-Lieutenant Bones, stubbornly chasing glory, killed his own teammates by accident and then tried to silence the witnesses. Colonel Samson claims he fled from Bones and fell into a crevasse."
Aside from Sub-Lieutenant Lucas's role being neatly left out, it was no different from the real testimony Haydam had given him.
Good thing Lord Haydam isn't here.
If he had been, faking first-time shock would have been far harder. Yosef pushed on with his performance of bafflement.
"What on earth are you talking about…? Didn't Colonel Samson testify that Lieutenant General Max ordered the murders?"
"Lord Haydam found Sub-Lieutenant Bones on the run and saved him from a monster attack. At the time, Bones told him that Max had ordered him killed, and that Samson was the one who murdered the team to cover it up. Since Samson's story and Bones's story didn't match, His Excellency chose to release a false account of the testimony and watch how things developed. In the meantime, he also confirmed there had been no contact whatsoever between Max and Samson."
Of course there hadn't. Max truly had nothing to do with any of this.
No proof he was the culprit, so they went looking for proof he wasn't?
"Even so… there's no evidence Sub-Lieutenant Bones is the culprit either, is there?"
"At the very least, we confirmed the bullet wound in Samson's shoulder was fired from Bones's weapon. And think about it—if Samson had been ordered to kill, how would a brand-new officer fresh out of commissioning have survived? Unless Bones struck first, it makes no sense that Bones was the one who walked away from that situation."
Yosef knew full well that Bones and Lucas had genuinely survived on their own, but it was obvious the circumstantial evidence was now stacking hard against Bones.
"But why hold it back until now and only bring it out—"
"I watched because Bones refused to name Max as the culprit, and I thought perhaps he'd given up on framing him. Then I saw him egg all of you into calling this officers' meeting, and I stepped forward. Retired or not, I can hardly sit idle while my old friend Max is destroyed by this kind of filial betrayal."
So this meeting was never for Bones's testimony in the first place.
They had already marked Bones as the culprit and dug the pit.
I can't get dragged into this with him.
Yosef let out a long breath, then fixed a hard glare on Bones standing at the witness stand. For reasons of his own, Bones kept his head bowed and did not move. The lack of active denial was odd, but Yosef took it for resignation—Bones knew he couldn't turn this around alone.
All the better. If he has no intention of defending himself, cutting him loose will be easy.
Calculations finished, Yosef raised his voice at Bones to drive the nail all the way in.
"Bones! I trusted you—I meant to protect you to the end! Even if he's only your adoptive father, how could you sell out the man who raised you?! Filial betrayal wasn't enough—you tried to make a fool of me and Lord Haydam as well, you insolent—"
"No!"
The sudden shout made him turn. It was Lieutenant General Max.
Did he just… say no?
His own name was finally about to be cleared—what was there to deny? Yosef half expected a torrent of bitterness toward the son who had betrayed him. What Max spat out in a desperate rush was nothing of the kind.
"Colonel Samson's words are not true! I am the one who threatened Colonel Samson and ordered him to kill Sub-Lieutenant Bones—I gave the order! Samson is giving a false confession right now to escape his own guilt!"
Yosef could not begin to understand what was happening. The one giving a false confession right now was Max himself.
"Therefore my son is innocent."
The words that followed left Yosef stunned. The man could have simply sat still and walked free—and instead this idiot was confessing to a crime he didn't commit to save his adopted son.
Yosef glanced toward Bones, half afraid the boy would rush to cover for his father again. But Bones was only staring at Max in a daze, as if something had just become clear to him.
What is wrong with these people?
A sour feeling rose in his gut, but Yosef forced it down.
No… this is actually perfect.
False confession or not, the man had admitted his guilt in front of everyone. Avoiding punishment would be nearly impossible. Proving innocence had always been several times harder than proving guilt. Even the Commander couldn't simply wave this away when the accused had just confessed to his face.
Thinking that, Yosef looked at the Commander—and immediately sensed that something was wrong. The Commander was watching Max with the eyes of a man who had just discovered something deeply interesting, and there was not a trace of displeasure in them.
"So this is the 'Solomon' Haydam spoke of."
Solomon? What the hell is Solomon?
Yosef could only gape. Bones, on the other hand, nodded as if he understood exactly what it meant.
"I understand now too."
"We've confirmed everything we needed to. This meeting is adjourned. Punishment regarding this matter will be decided later."
With that, and without giving anyone a chance to ask a single question, the Commander left the hall. By the time Yosef collected himself, both Max and Bones were already gone.