Abandon the Sinking Ship
"I don't know what misunderstanding you've talked yourself into, Smith. What you found was not a spy being smuggled out."
Louis went on, unhurried, and in the same breath sent a hand signal she could not read. It looked like an order to run when he gave the sign, though she had no idea in which direction. All she could do was hope Thomas had understood it.
"Look at the high-and-mighty Louis Kane, stooping to excuses. Sophia's body must have felt that good, huh? Save that crap for when they drag you upstairs. All of you—down. Now."
Derek flicked the gun in a threat as he gave the order. The three of them began to lower themselves, slowly. She could not see how anyone was meant to signal in a moment like this. Jiyeon was afraid—afraid Louis Kane would do something reckless, afraid he would be hurt.
Yeah. Damn it. I'm afraid that man will get hurt.
She admitted it without a fight, the curse barely leaving her mouth. These past few days of being forced, again and again, to look straight at her own heart had left her worn thin and unsteady. Derek started closer, as if to check whether they were armed, then faltered.
"You check them."
He gave the order to the subordinate standing behind him. Jiyeon sneered to herself. Maybe Derek remembered going down with his nose buried against her head, his lower half left hanging out for anyone to see.
After a brief silence the soldier began to approach them where they lay, his face set in grim resolve. He had a gun too. And he was terrified. One wrong move, and their side could come out the worse for it. With shaking hands he searched Louis's body.
The moment held all of them taut. He found a pistol tucked into the back of Louis's boot and tossed it toward Derek. Derek glanced at it and smiled, mean and satisfied. Pride at having ordered the search was written plainly across his face.
Then it happened faster than a blink. Louis rose like a striking hawk, slammed into the soldier, and drove straight at Derek. The gun in the soldier's hand spun away and struck the ground.
The shout was Louis's signal.
What followed would not stay clear in her memory. They were running. Gunfire cracked, shot after shot, loud enough to split the air. There was no pain. No wound. Thomas led the way ahead of her. They vaulted the main gate of Guard Post 7 and tore straight onto the mountain path, and thick brush raked her cheek as they went.
The muscles in her legs clenched and released in a frantic rhythm. Only after she had run a long way did Jiyeon realize Louis was not coming behind her. She stopped dead. They were already deep in the forest. Every swollen muscle in her body jumped with her pulse. The gunfire was gone. All that remained was the violent hammering of her heart.
Thomas, well ahead, seemed to sense that she had stopped. He came back.
"Major Kane fell behind. We have to go back for him."
She delivered it short, her eyes sharp. She had obeyed Louis's order without question, but she had never meant to leave him behind.
"He did not fall behind. The hand signal was the operation from the start."
"So while your superior eats the bullets, we're just supposed to run?"
Thomas closed his mouth. Jiyeon gathered the hair that had come loose and bound it tight again.
"We go back, read the situation, and pull him out."
"We cannot. The Major will follow us. He is not a bullet shield. He carried out this plan because it was the most rational one."
"Two of them are armed."
"Trust him. If we break from the operation here, the plan fails instead. At five o'clock the rebels strike. We must get as far from the battalion as we can."
For a moment the two of them stood opposed. Jiyeon fought to force down the anxiety pressing in on her, and the private feeling with it. If even one of those shots had found Louis, he would have a hard time crossing the mountain path to join them.
However extraordinary a soldier Louis Kane was, a bullet in flight did not swerve aside for him. But Thomas was right. Their destination was already fixed. If she and Thomas went back down and the three of them crossed one another the wrong way, every part of the plan would come apart.
The mountain was vast. If Louis had won the standoff, he would have withdrawn into it. If he had not, Derek would have taken him. And at five, the rebels would strike.
Jiyeon drew the electronic watch from her pocket and checked the time.
Go down, and all three of them died. The conclusion was already set. Just as Second Lieutenant Thomas had said, she had no choice but to trust Louis Kane. She hoped he had made it safely into the mountains—that he held every variable in his hands and was calculating, the way he always did. The way he always had.
"We move. We have delayed too long. We must get as far as we can."
Thomas set the pace. Jiyeon clenched her teeth and drove her legs, and after that the two of them moved without a word between them. She emptied every thought and fought to focus on nothing but the run. Unused by anyone, the mountain path was rough and mean. She slipped twice, hauled herself up, and ran on. Twenty minutes or so had passed when Thomas stopped.
Jiyeon looked around. In the blue of first light the mountain was clear and beautiful. Thomas pushed slowly through the growth, then cleared the branches covering a rock, and all at once the open sky and the slope below spread out before them.
They studied what lay beneath with care. The battalion looked very small, like a cluster of toy buildings, and she could see it plainly: thick smoke rising from it, black as a storm cloud.
The raid seemed to have begun on the western side of the buildings—the exact opposite of the direction the 5th Battalion had marched.
"I do not understand what they believe is in the Bunker, to raise this kind of hell. We are all dying together anyway."
He muttered it in a voice thick with doubt.
"The research team, isn't it? They want the technology shared with them."
Every rebel band and revolutionary force would want the same things. Food and water. And, desperately, the technology to purify land the virus had contaminated.
"Doctor Gong Myeong-ho and the research team escaped the Bunker long ago. The remaining researchers are confined, yes, but they are in no condition to conduct any real work."
Thomas delivered it as if the words were not chilling at all. He glanced at Jiyeon, who was staring at him in blank shock, and pressed them on along the path.
"They said they had to leave the Bunker. That they needed a new base, and new materials for their research."
Their pace had slowed by then. Jiyeon listened to Thomas while every sense stayed cocked for any trace of Louis. Aside from his explanation, the mountain birds, and the wind, she heard nothing at all.
"Major Louis was the only one who agreed with them. The senior officers opposed it."
That was the end of the explanation. It was enough. Only now could Jiyeon see the whole of the picture Louis had drawn.
The Bunker was already a sinking ship. Louis Kane, always quick to read a situation, seemed to have decided to abandon it. Thomas was the sailor who followed his captain. Jiyeon and her younger sister, Ella, had been permitted to keep their lives—if only as prisoners.
And that captain had fallen behind, trying to save a worthless captive.
Thomas showed no sign of resenting her. Or perhaps he was pressing the feeling down, hard. Once anger broke loose, it was difficult to catch again.
They walked a long while once more. They did not seem to be climbing toward the top of the forest. If anything, they were leaving the ridge and dropping into a deep ravine. She wondered whether Major Louis even knew this way. The woods were deep enough that coming once or twice would never be enough to learn the paths.