Chapter 90
Chapter 90
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 90
Chapter Title: The Heart of a Man Robbed (1)
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Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat! KABOOM!
The sound of gunfire from all directions rang sharply in his ears.
Tracer rounds cut through the darkness, and the occasional RPG sent dirt raining down.
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat!
“We're surrounded!”
“Clear a path out!”
“It's no use! They're closing in from all sides!”
Aiden stared at his subordinates and comrades, his face caught somewhere between dream and reality.
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat!
“Gaaahk!”
One of his men, shredded by Taliban machine-gun fire while returning shots.
He was the one who just last month had proudly shown off a picture of his newborn child.
Fweee! KABOOM!
The chunk of meat that scattered after being hit by an RPG while carrying a wounded soldier had been the unit's indispensable morale booster.
He'd been brilliant at animal impressions. Aiden himself had clutched his stomach, laughing, when the guy had mimicked the cry of an elephant in heat.
Wham!
Feeling a chilling hand grab him by the collar, Aiden let out a silent scream.
“Lieutenant Colonel Aiden! Snap out of it!”
“…The new guy.”
The man looked awkward in his combat helmet.
The freckles on his face made him look three years younger than he was, and his striking, clear emerald eyes were unforgettable.
He held Aiden by the collar, his lips trembling and his eyes wide.
“You need to give us orders! If you don’t….”
POP!
With a sound like a balloon or tire popping, the new guy's face contorted grotesquely.
A sniper's bullet had pierced him in a spot his helmet couldn't protect. He slowly sank to his knees, blood spewing from his nose and mouth.
Even then, his fingers remained hooked on Aiden's collar, making it look as if he were clinging to him.
Seeing the private's eyes roll back and the blood gushing from the bullet hole, Aiden opened his mouth.
And something erupted from his lips.
A scream?
A cry of anguish?
Perhaps it was resentment.
It could have been a sense of betrayal toward the commanders who had sent them on a mission in terrain overlooked from all sides, and toward the local residents who, despite everything they'd been given, had ultimately sided with the Taliban.
“Aiden?”
Aiden blinked.
Night had turned to day, the outdoors to an indoor room.
The ringing in his ears and the stench of blood in his nose had vanished completely.
Aiden shifted his gaze to the middle-aged man sitting across the desk.
The man was staring at Aiden, his hands clasped on the desk.
“I’ve told you time and again.”
Told me what?
The moment the question formed, he understood the situation.
“I'm requesting another operation.”
Aiden spoke, and his superior on the other side of the desk rubbed the wrinkles on his forehead before replying.
“No. There will be no further operations.”
“You know perfectly well what happened there.”
Aiden said, his eyes trembling.
How could he ever forget that day?
That night, when despair and death had closed in from all sides, carried on bullets.
The battle of Kamdesh.
“It wasn't just one or two soldiers who died there. They still come to me in my dreams. They ask me why I'm still alive, they tell me how much it hurts, they beg me to save them.”
His voice and gaze wavered with the intensity of his emotions.
His superior looked at him with pity and let out a heavy sigh.
“I understand you have lingering regrets, but….”
“Regrets? You call this regrets?”
Aiden glared.
He rose from his chair, watching as bewilderment spread across his superior's face.
Then, clenching his fists, he spat out his words.
“Do you know how many of my men died there? How many were wounded? The ones who made it back are still afraid of the light. A grown man will piss himself if a car's headlights shine through the window. Some of them collapse on the street and just start bawling their eyes out!”
Aiden stopped abruptly, as if choked, and gasped for breath.
Then, in a voice that was clearly a struggle to produce, he pleaded.
“Send me back to Kamdesh. Please….”
For the sake of the dead.
For the sake of the living.
Aiden had to return to Kamdesh.
And he had to eliminate every last member of the Taliban so that they could find some peace.
He considered it his mission, his destiny, something he had to achieve before he died.
“Aiden….”
His superior's eyebrows furrowed in pity before he let out a deep sigh.
A moment passed, then he clenched his jaw and rose from his chair.
“What I'm about to show you… just forget it.”
“What are you talking about?”
His superior approached him and pulled three folded photographs from his pocket.
“It's already over. There's no need for that anymore.”
As if showing him something he wasn't supposed to see, the superior very cautiously presented the photos to Aiden.
Matching his caution, Aiden took the photos carefully and examined them.
It was Kamdesh.
The photos, taken against the backdrop of that unforgettable place, were filled with the bodies of Taliban fighters.
Flip, flip.
The other two photos were similar.
A picture of the Taliban leader who had attacked them, a bullet embedded in his head.
The desolate Taliban stronghold.
Just as the fire in his heart cooled to ice and his mind went blank, loosening the muscles in his face, his superior's voice continued.
“Forget it. Just forget everything and live in peace. You can do that now.”
Aiden's hand trembled, making the corners of the photos shake unsteadily.
His mind was a tangled mess.
He felt as if his destiny had been stolen, yet also a sense of relief, and he couldn't understand why this was being shown to him so cautiously.
But the biggest question was, who on earth had annihilated the Taliban?
“Which unit did this?”
“I don't know that either.”
Aiden shifted his gaze to his superior.
The man was looking at him with a serious expression.
“It's top secret. So don't try to find out.”
“What….”
“This isn't a warning, it's an order.”
His superior took the photos from Aiden's hand and continued in a low voice.
“You're the only one who can know about this. You're not a low-ranking officer; I trust you understand what I'm saying.”
Aiden looked down at his hand, his thumb and index finger still pressed together as if he were holding the photos.
“It'll be hard, but from now on, live with a peaceful mind. Forget everything about Kamdesh.”
His superior patted him on the shoulder.
And yet, he felt no peace at all. With a bewildered expression, Aiden just stared at his fingers.
Then, he let a 'Yes, sir,' slip from between his parted lips.
But his mind was still on the photographs.
As if he were possessed.
He just couldn't let it go.
Jolt!
Aiden's eyes snapped open at the vibration that shook his body.
With wide eyes, he looked around and realized he was in a moving car.
‘A dream?’
Everything that had felt so vivid, so tangible, had all been a dream.
But it wasn't an ordinary dream.
It was a memory, replaying itself.
A memory from a year ago.
Aiden went to rub his face but swallowed a groan at the pain in his arm.
“You don't look well.”
Leila, who had been grilling a passerby for information on Rashid, noticed Aiden was awake and spoke to him.
Aiden looked at himself in the rearview mirror.
His face, pale as bleached leather, was glistening with a cold sweat.
“The sun will be up soon. You should get treatment at a hospital.”
Aiden started to nod, then stopped.
He fixed his gaze on Kanghyeok in the driver's seat and Leila in the passenger's seat.
‘Could you be the people I've been looking for?’
For the past year, he had searched for the unit that attacked the Taliban in Kamdesh.
When he found no answers in the military, he filed for discharge and began gathering information as a mercenary.
But all he found was a baseless rumor about the Avenger of Kamdesh.
An absurd story about men in suits eliminating the Taliban.
But looking at these two, he started to think that rumor might be true.
If so, could they be the Avengers of Kamdesh?
“Something you want to say?”
Aiden looked at Leila and let out a hoarse reply.
“Nothing.”
He had many questions.
But these two were trying to hide their identities, so they wouldn't answer even if he asked.
Creak.
A spring protested as Leila leaned back deep into her seat.
“We'll be at our destination soon. You can either stay in the car or go to a nearby hospital.”
Aiden silently cradled his left arm with his right hand.
His untreated left arm felt like it was burning.
‘Is it getting infected? Dammit.’
Fluid was building up and pus was forming; if he didn't get it treated right now, he might have to have the arm amputated.
But was that okay?
To let a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity slip away?
Aiden gripped his left arm and clenched his teeth.
What if these two are the people I'm looking for?
What if they're deeply connected to the Avengers of Kamdesh, or know who they are?
Aiden closed his eyes slowly.
He sank into thought so deep that he no longer noticed the heat of the inflammation rising from his body or the smell of his own sweat.
And so, he reached a conclusion.
Just then, Kanghyeok threw a brief glance at Aiden in the rearview mirror before looking away.
‘Foolish man.’
Aiden's face was one of a man who had resolved to die.
It wasn't that he didn't understand how he felt.
‘He wants to find answers.’
The timing of his discharge, his obsessive personality regarding the deaths of others, and the fact that his last duty station was Kamdesh.
Anyone who wasn't an idiot could figure out that Aiden was a survivor of the battle of Kamdesh.
‘Does he want answers that badly?’
After the battle of Kamdesh, people from the company had been dispatched at the request of the U.S. military.
It was to uphold the honor of the U.S. military, to secure intel and materials they couldn't retrieve during their hasty evacuation, and to annihilate the Taliban who had dared to touch them.
This operation was a secret, but word might have reached the ears of Aiden, a survivor of the battle.
Aiden was probably looking for the ones who had done his job for him.
It was a foolish thing to do.
Finding the answer wouldn't bring him recognition, nor would it bring him peace of mind.
So why the obsession?
Because it was taken from him.
He might deny it himself, but in the end, he wanted to know who had stolen his chance for revenge.
It was pathetic and sad.
The root of such an obsession was ultimately the guilt and regret of not being able to die alongside his comrades.
Having lived far longer than his apparent age and once having been a soldier himself, Kanghyeok could understand the sentiment.
Rustle.
Kanghyeok took a cigarette from his pocket and offered it to Aiden in the back seat.
Aiden took the cigarette from Kanghyeok and raised one corner of his mouth in a bitter smile.
“Ha, an American cigarette.”
Seeing no reason to refuse, Aiden put the cigarette to his lips and struck the flint of his lighter. Kanghyeok also took out a cigarette for himself.
Click! Fwoosh!
Kanghyeok lit his cigarette and drove in the direction Leila indicated.
‘Time to stop thinking about Aiden.’
There were other things to think about, other things to do.
Having sorted out his feelings, Kanghyeok stared ahead with sharp eyes and put the lighter back in his pocket.
“We're almost there.”
Leila's voice was filled with the determination to finally find Jeff Black's whereabouts this time.
‘I agree.’
That's why they had come all the way to Bazarak.
To find Rashid.
Dive's cousin, the man who had kidnapped Jeff and likely knew his location.
If they could secure him, they could definitely save Jeff.
“That's the building.”
Kanghyeok fixed his gaze where Leila was looking.
A mansion that was relatively grand compared to the surrounding buildings.
Rashid was inside that mansion.