Triple Border (4)
“What?”
Captain Lee’s eyes widened in disbelief as he asked again.
“You want us to find the zombie that Hwang Na… that woman turned into?”
Even without saying it outright, his expression screamed: In this vast city of Seoul? Where the hell are we supposed to look?
“That’s right!”
Major Oh nodded, his entire body radiating that there would be no compromise.
“Find her at all costs! A woman in a female soldier’s uniform! The name tag says Yoo So-jin! Until you bring her back, no one is leaving this place. Understood? Make sure every single enlisted man knows exactly what they’re supposed to do!”
“Major Oh, sir. That woman… is dead. I understand I’ve disappointed you, but that much I’m certain of. I saw with my own eyes as she was swarmed by a group of five zombies.”
Captain Lee once again spouted something utterly absurd. This bastard… it was as if the Three Goddesses had given him a thick hide and a sack of lies instead of brains. No matter what anyone said, his only instinct was to spit out whatever excuse would get him out of the situation. The habit was ingrained in him like a second skin.
“Find her! That’s an order. Got it?”
Major Oh ground his teeth and jabbed a finger right in front of the man’s face, ignoring the stiffening expressions of the nearby non-commissioned officers and junior officers.
He knew better than anyone how difficult it would be to locate a single woman in a zombie-infested metropolis with no leads whatsoever. If someone had given him that order, he too would have felt the world go dark.
But right now, he wasn’t in a position to care about anyone else’s circumstances. If he returned empty-handed after bringing this many troops, the blame would fall squarely on him. Lieutenant General Park would undoubtedly protect that idiot Captain Lee again, so someone had to be the scapegoat… and Major Oh had no intention of taking that role. Absolutely not.
“Ah… well…”
Captain Lee, who had stood there dazed for a while with his mouth hanging open, suddenly lit up.
“Understood! If you lend me two Black Hawks, I’ll comb a thirty-kilometer radius with the men and find her. No, I will find her!”
This goddamn bastard…
Major Oh’s face flushed red with rage again as he saw straight through the man’s intentions. Right now, this piece of shit planned to sit up in a helicopter and watch the battle from the sky like a spectator. And if things went wrong—if a horde of four or more zombies overwhelmed the ground forces—he would simply flee back to Busan.
“Captain Lee…”
Major Oh suppressed the urge to slap the man across the face and spoke in a low voice.
“Why the hell are you like this? Even in a situation like this, you can’t speak honestly? Huh? If you had just told me from the start that you didn’t kill that woman, I would have come properly prepared! Why do you always try to weasel out with lies? Lend you helicopters? So you can run away on them? Is that it?”
If this bastard had reported the truth, they could have at least brought military dogs! They could have gotten Hwang Nayeon’s clothes and tracked her scent… Then the search wouldn’t have been this hopeless. Now it was truly like finding a needle in a desert.
“Sir? No, that’s not it. I’m not lying… I just want to carry out the order as quickly as possible, out of loyalty…”
Captain Lee flinched but immediately launched into another round of smooth-talking nonsense. There wasn’t even a one-second delay in his excuses. Major Oh once again felt the crushing realization that communication with this man was impossible.
“If you’re so loyal, then use your own two feet. You went to the military academy… You at least learned the basics of reconnaissance, didn’t you?”
“Ah, yes… Of course I did. That’s why I thought if we increased speed from the air…”
“Stop spouting nonsense that doesn’t even sound like words! First, find a clue! Start from the exact spot where you saw her get bitten and search with your own eyes and your own feet!”
Major Oh grabbed Captain Lee by the shoulders and squeezed hard. Handing over two Black Hawks to a man who might abandon his responsibilities and run at any moment was out of the question. Not two. Not even one.
“Once you find a clue, report it over the radio. Then I’ll track that direction from the air. If you understand, take the 3rd Platoon and move out right now.”
Major Oh pointed to roughly twenty soldiers positioned nearby. It wasn’t because the 3rd Platoon was particularly suited for this mission, nor because he disliked them. None of the soldiers he had brought today had been involved in yesterday’s operation, and none of them even knew what they were looking for. They were simply the ones who had caught his eye at that moment.
“Um… Major Oh, sir, this… I’m not trying to disobey your orders, but… this area is on the route that large numbers of zombies pass through.”
Captain Lee, still drenched in sweat and trembling, forced the words out. Major Oh narrowed his eyes.
“So?”
“That’s why… conducting a ground search is extremely dangerous. We don’t know when a horde of five or more zombies might pass through, and if the soldiers are moving around searching… there’s a risk they could get caught up in it…”
Captain Lee stammered out excuses. The words were long and numerous, but they all boiled down to one thing: I’m scared. Major Oh’s voice rose involuntarily.
“Then set up machine guns and establish a perimeter! Secure the high ground, build defensive positions to ensure our safety, and move under a unified command structure! Do I have to spell all that out for you?”
“But… with only the firepower of about twenty men, taking down a horde of five or more…”
“Ah, we’ll provide support from above. If that many zombies approach, of course we’ll give you advance warning. So trust your comrades and trust me, and focus on the search mission without worry.”
Major Oh gestured toward the Black Hawks hovering overhead. Then, making it clear he had nothing more to say, he turned sharply and called for the 3rd Platoon leader.
“Hey, Second Lieutenant Seong!”
“Yes, sir!”
The 3rd Platoon leader, Second Lieutenant Seong, stepped forward with a tense expression. Major Oh pointed at the overpass still marked with bullet holes and gave rapid orders.
“I already told Captain Lee, but I’ll say it again for you. Start from here and sweep the entire area! What you’re looking for is Major Yoo So-jin in a female soldier’s uniform. There’s a very high chance she’s turned into a zombie, but we can’t completely rule out the possibility that she’s lying somewhere as a corpse or hiding while injured. Search thoroughly. Until you find Major Yoo So-jin and bring her to me, no one is going back. Prioritize safety, but the use of Claymores, grenades, rifle grenades, and any other explosives that could tear a body to pieces is strictly prohibited. Understood?”
This way, that bastard Captain Lee wouldn’t be able to pull any tricks in the middle.
“Ah… Yes! Understood. We will definitely find Major Yoo So-jin!”
Second Lieutenant Seong wore a fearful expression but shouted the order back with force. Major Oh placed a hand on his shoulder and nodded.
“Good! Let’s start with a one-kilometer radius around here. That round building over there, this subway station, and everything beyond! Search every inch! Zombies don’t always stay on the roads. Don’t leave a single spot unchecked!”
After giving detailed instructions, Major Oh clapped his hands and urged his men forward.
“Alright, enough talk! Move, move! At this rate, will we even finish today? None of you want to spend the night here, right? Captain Lee, you move out too!”
After the 3rd Platoon—suddenly assigned to the search without reason—split into three groups and departed in different directions, Major Oh led most of his remaining men toward the floating café that had been the negotiation site the day before. Among the ruins, it was the most suitable place to set up a temporary headquarters, and he judged it would also hold the most traces of the enemy.
“These… are all the bodies that were on this bridge?”
Major Oh asked as he looked at the row of corpses laid out along the Han River bank right in front of the pontoon bridge. The non-commissioned officer overseeing the work pointed at the blood-stained pontoon.
“Yes, sir! The bridge is so narrow that we had no choice but to move the bodies here to keep traffic flowing.”
“And these?”
Major Oh pointed at the blood-covered polycarbonate shields placed beside the MP5 submachine guns.
“Were these moved here just now too?”
“Correct, sir.”
The non-commissioned officer nodded again.
Damn it… They got completely slaughtered. It was a total massacre…
Staring blankly at the nine corpses and their equipment, Major Oh swallowed hard. Eight men approaching in formation with polycarbonate shields had been turned into Swiss cheese… He couldn’t even begin to imagine how overwhelming the enemy’s firepower must have been.
Of course, most of the bullet holes in those bodies had come from warning shots fired by soldiers approaching from the Han River side, but he had no way of knowing that.
“Ugh! Urgh!”
On one side, soldiers who had been tasked with moving the bodies bent over and vomited. Carrying corpses with their guts spilling out was no simple task, but to Major Oh, the sight was equally distressing. Having to face zombies in this desolate city with such soft-hearted enlisted men felt like a nightmare.
Thud—! Thump—!
Over ten soldiers took positions at the second-floor windows, lying prone in firing stances. Among them were two K-3 machine guns, but even so, Major Oh remained uneasy.
“Talking about rain washing it away… what a load of crap.”
Stepping across the pontoon bridge’s carpet still covered in dark red bloodstains, Major Oh wiped his face. The traces of a person being killed couldn’t be erased so easily by a few dozen milliliters of rain.
Where on earth had Hwang Nayeon gone? Could they even find her?
Anxious questions with no easy answers kept rising, weighing heavily on his head and chest. The northern part of the city alone was endlessly vast, and there was zero evidence that zombie Hwang Nayeon was actually wandering somewhere up there. They were just assuming. Based solely on the word of that lying bastard Captain Lee…
What if she crossed to the south side? How would we find her then? No… is it even true that she turned into a zombie? What if she’s still alive with her eyes wide open? What if… General Kim’s people took her and hid her? How the hell would we handle the aftermath?
When the question he feared most—the one he had been desperately avoiding—finally surfaced in his mind, a cold shiver ran down Major Oh’s spine.
“Aigoo…”
Major Oh lowered his head and let out another sigh. Hwang Nayeon’s life or death had gone beyond mere anxiety or worry. It had become a very real concern.
Maybe… Hwang Nayeon was still alive.
What made that possibility seem real was the scene around this overpass, which had been identified as the site where General Kim’s people had hidden and resisted. For a crime scene, this place was far too clean.
Although he hadn’t directly commanded in the field, he had seen enough zombie attack sites to know what they looked like. Massive amounts of blood, spilled intestines, severed limbs scattered about, and zombie corpses lying in grotesque shapes nearby. Humans resisted most fiercely right before being bitten, so they always took a few zombies down with them—especially soldiers armed with personal firearms.
But here, none of those elements were visible. No horribly mutilated zombie corpses, no dried blood, no pieces of intestines… nothing. That meant… Captain Lee’s claim that he had seen Hwang Nayeon get bitten was, like all his other statements, highly likely to be a blatant lie.
“Haa, this is strange. No matter how I look at it, nothing adds up… Nothing…”
Standing on the third floor of the floating café that had served as the negotiation site, Major Oh let out a deep sigh.
“What’s wrong, sir?”
The 1st Platoon leader, who had approached him, asked. Major Oh shook his head and muttered quietly.
“There are no bodies here either.”
Captain Lee had clearly reported that the enemy force was the size of a platoon and that the engagement had begun at this location. The hundreds of bullet marks remaining at least suggested that part was true, but once again, there were no enemy corpses in sight.
…Why? Why the hell were there no bodies?
Major Oh clenched his teeth and looked around. It was hard to believe that a place where so many bullets had been fired was completely devoid of dead bodies, even as he stood there looking at it.
Had they been fighting ghosts?
The only corpses he had seen since arriving here today were the Taeyang Group bodyguards and his own soldiers whose unit patches had been removed. Around that strangely shaped building, inside the fence at the swimming pool, and on the pontoon bridge leading to this floating café—every single one had been friendly corpses.
At this point, it was questionable whether they had even engaged the enemy at all. It would make far more logical sense if there had been a firefight between the Taeyang Group bodyguards and Captain Lee’s forces.
“Still, it seems they were definitely here. And they were injured too.”
Looking at the faint bloodstains left on the corner of a table and on the floor—stains that hadn’t been completely washed away by the rain—Major Oh wiped his mouth. For once, he had found physical evidence confirming the enemy’s presence. Little did he know that it was actually the dried blood of the Taeyang Group bodyguards who had been attacked by Sheriff and Mingu.
“Did you find anything like a clue?”
When Major Oh asked, the 1st Platoon leader held out a small leather bag riddled with bullet holes.
“We found this here.”
“…Is that so?”
Major Oh nodded, having finally obtained some evidence. At a glance, it was clearly the bag Hwang Nayeon had brought with her.
Thud—!
When he opened the bag, a broken cell phone and a few other items came out. And those items were… just one compact and a dark-colored lipstick.
She really was a simple woman.
Putting the crushed lipstick back into the bag, Major Oh clicked his tongue again. Coming to a dangerous place like this for negotiations with strangers, without even bringing a self-defense weapon—let alone a location tracker… It was hard to believe even with his own eyes. No matter how much she relied on her bodyguards…
Of course, since she had dropped the bag here, whatever she had brought would have been useless anyway, but it was still absurdly pathetic by any reasonable standard. Still, at least they had secured one piece of evidence that Hwang Nayeon had been at the center of the firefight on the Han River.
“I’ll take this with me… Anything else?”
When Major Oh asked, the 1st Platoon leader answered with a troubled expression.
“We already searched, but so far we haven’t found anything that could really be called a clue or evidence.”
“Nothing at all? No equipment, supplies, anything left behind? At the very least, a uniform with a division patch or something like that. It was an emergency, so there should be plenty of things they couldn’t take with them.”
“It’s not exactly a clue, but there was a generator and an ice maker on the first floor. Other than that, just trash. Empty food containers they ate from and…”
“A generator?”
Major Oh blinked at the unexpected answer. Whether they ran a generator or made ice, what did that matter? What he wanted wasn’t common consumer goods—it was something that could reveal the enemy’s identity.
“That’s all?”
“The most notable thing besides that was four air mattresses laid out.”
“Four? Only four?”
Had they slept in shifts of four? Then the number of people who had stayed here was only about ten. So where had the rest of the force slept? As Major Oh was turning these calculations over in his head, the radio operator held out the handset. When he put it to his ear, Captain Lee’s excited voice came through.
—Chiiik! Major Oh, sir! This is Captain Lee! Chiiik…! I think you need to come over here!
The man was speaking rapidly in his characteristically exaggerated tone.
—Chiiik! I found something incredible in the underground passage leading to Jayang-dong! Chiiik!